AMHERST - The remodeling job was done, and Peter Jessup of Integrity Development and Construction had to decide what to do with the 20-year-old kitchen cabinets that his crew had removed from the house.

He could have broken down the cabinets and paid about $50 to dispose of them. But the cabinets were still usable, and junking them just didn't seem right, he said.

So he called ReStore, a 3-year-old Springfield nonprofit that sells used building materials at 50 to 70 percent off retail price. ReStore picked up the cabinets at no charge, and Jessup got a receipt entitling him to a tax deduction.

''What a terrific idea,'' he said. ''We do it because it's a much better way to recycle. It's a little easier to just trash stuff, but it doesn't take much more effort to give them a call.''

Last month, Amherst's Solid Waste Committee sent a letter to about 100 businesses encouraging them to consider using ReStore, said chairman Patricia Church. When businesses bring old building materials to the transfer station, they pay a $95-a-ton disposal fee, she said.

ReStore's retail location is 250 Albany St. in Springfield. It accepts and then sells windows, doors, plumbing fixtures, bathroom items, flooring, building materials and kitchen cabinets and sinks, said Tammi McBath of Florence, the marketing and outreach coordinator.

It has seven employees and had $180,000 in sales last year, and projects $270,000 in the current year, she said.

Anyone seeking to donate items in good working condition can call ReStore at 788-6900 to arrange for free pickup, she said. ReStore is a project of the Center for Ecological Technology in Northampton.

ReStore has just started a new service that McBath calls ''deconstruction.'' For a fee, its crews will take apart a house and salvage usable materials.

At a recent job in Greenfield, she said, only six Dumpsters of waste were left behind instead of an estimated 36 she figured would have been left without ReStore's work.

Marlene Barnett, Amherst's recycling coordinator, said she knows contractors who have donated materials to ReStore and those who have bought items there.

''It's a very New England thing,'' she said. ''We like to use things over and over until they really are gone.''

Nick Grabbe can be reached at ngrabbe@gazettenet.com.

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