New cash cow: recycling those paving bricks

FAIRPORT HARBOR, Ohio (AP) -- This community alongside Lake Erie is making money by recycling its paving bricks.
Millions of bricks removed when village streets were repaved in the last few years are piled in stacks waiting to be sold to support restoration efforts elsewhere.
Mayor Frank Sarosy said the village has already sold 70,000 paving bricks for $59,500 to Hudson for the reconstruction of the Akron suburb's picturesque town square.
Sarosy said the village hopes to use the cash from bricks to start rebuilding.
"High Street looks like a ghost town," Sarosy said on a recent tour that showed 28 boarded-up buildings and vacant stores along the town's main thoroughfare.
John Gavin, owner of Historical Bricks Inc. in Iowa, said reclaimed bricks from century-old streets are valuable. In the last three years, his company has reclaimed 40 million pounds of bricks from dumps and streets across the country.
Gavin said architects and developers reviving old town squares such as Hudson's are trying to re-create the charm of yesteryear, making reclaimed bricks a highly sought item.
"Old brick pavers are much stronger and more colorful than modern bricks," said Gavin, who has not been contacted but is interested in buying some of Fairport's stash.
Historic pavers such as Fairport's sell for 85 cents apiece and weigh as much as 10 pounds each, while newer, more-porous ones may average only 1 pound or more.
Fairport Harbor once thrived with hotels, restaurants and taverns catering to merchant mariners and dock workers who crowded the pier in its heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The port once featured ore and coal slips that allowed six ships to dock at the same time.