Rummage For Materials On Internet Database Offers Contacts For Exchange Of Bulk Goods

Bob Smee, of the National Materials Exchange Network in Spokane, would like to see you boot up your computer the next time you need bricks to build a patio, instead of heading to the local home center.

Or if you’re a manufacturer with left-over hydrochloric acid, he’d like you to check the ‘Net before calling your waste disposal company.

But he’s not picky. “You can communicate by phone, fax or mail, and ultimately, we’ll get it into the system,” he said.

The Materials Exchange Network is a database that can be accessed with a modem either directly to its bulletin board or on the exchange’s World Wide Web site. Both offer contacts for materials and goods that would otherwise end up in a land fill or incinerator. Computer users can either call the bulletin board directly or access the Web’s interconnected sites through the Internet, a worldwide network of computers.

“Why go to the classifieds when you can go to the computer?” said Michael Silver, CEO of Earthcycle, a Woodland Hills, Calif., recycling company that sponsored the Web site.

The exchange started out as the Pacific Materials Exchange, a non-profit organization that Smee started in Spokane in 1988.

“We started out with the Northwest,” he said. The group developed a database that eventually became the nationwide bulletin board service in the first part of 1993. The Web site came two years later.

“We had that idea for the Web for some time,” said Smee. “We just didn’t have the capital to do that.”

Along came Silver. Smee said that the CEO had heard about the exchange’s bulletin board and had approached Smee about the Web. Neither Smee nor Silver were very specific about exactly how the two groups are affiliated. When pressed, Smee said that it was more or less a partnership, although he expects that the exchange will eventually become a subsidiary of Earthcycle.

While there is plenty on the exchange to interest the consumer, including sections for furniture, toys, jewelry and auto parts, much of what’s listed is directed toward industry, such as acids, alkalis, organic and inorganic chemicals.

“One thing that still needs to be resolved is that materials exchange users are most likely to be in the industrial sector,” said Bill Lawrence, a senior environmental health specialist with Seattle’s Industrial Materials Exchange. “Are they using the Internet?”

It’s a good question. T.L. Nebrich, Jr. of Waste Technology Services, a Niagara Falls, N.Y. environmental consulting company, has had a listing for hydrochloric acid in the exchange’s database for a year, but had received no calls.

Even Lawrence, whose Seattle exchange provides listings for the national database, said that he knows of only two transactions in the past couple years.

But he and others in the recycling industry say that the lack of activity has more to do with the newness of the Web than the value of the site.

“It takes time for the business community to adapt and use new tools,” said Phil Bailey, director of market development for the National Recycling Coalition, a trade group. “It doesn’t mean that the tool hasn’t got value. It means it takes time for people to use it.”

Executive Vice President Gregory Paulay of Certified Environments, Inc., a Silver Spring, Md. said that right now many companies are developing Web sites. “However, the Internet is being used at this point for communicating back and forth. There’s not that much use of services. I would say that things will be dramatically different in a year.”

Smee said there were almost 12,000 listings in the database, which has 17 materials categories and 14 goods categories. There are also sections for recycling services, environmental consulting and nine other service-oriented categories.

One of the success stories touted in Earthcycle’s promotional literature was not the direct result of a Web transaction, as implied. Pacific Materials Exchange did provide the contractors building President Clinton’s White House jogging track with the person who supplied the recycled tires that the track is made of. But the track was built in 1993, two years before the Web site existed. Smee also conceded that the transaction came about because of phone calls, not a computer search.

But it was the transaction itself that was important, not how it came about, said Smee. He doesn’t have the staff to follow up on all the referrals that are made through the network. But the site does have a comments section, and Smee said that the response has been positive.

“We know that it works,” he said about materials exchange. “We’ve got eight years of experience that it works, but I can’t quantify it.”