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Man's business model founded on recycling
Heart of Eugene Blount's business is repairing and selling vacuum cleaners
Monica Young Photo
Eugene Blount buys, sells and trades in used goods. He is also working on a cleaning product to replace detergent for cleaning clothes.
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Published: May 29, 2008
KERNERSVILLE
Eugene Blount's clothes are never new. Everything he wears and uses comes from local thrift stores, yard sales or other places.
His nice Luminox watch? A thrift-store find. His name-brand shirts and shorts? Right off the Goodwill rack. The new patio that he and wife, Lauren, are building? Those bricks came from the house being moved from the lot next door to the Kernersville Moravian Church.
Blount's commitment to reusing and recycling runs so deep that he started a business called Cash 4 Goods that buys, sells and trades used goods. While the business deals in a variety of goods, it focuses often on recycling vacuum cleaners.
With a Peters Creek Parkway storefront in Winston-Salem, a Saturday/Sunday booth at Winston-Salem's Cook's Flea Market and online sales, the Blounts have carved out a niche for their recycling business.
At a young age, he had a job cleaning vacuum cleaners. In college, he sold vacuum cleaners to support himself. Repairing and selling used vacuum hoses and vacuums seemed like a natural place to start his recycling business.
The business deals in vacuum cleaners and handles a variety of products, including buying excess inventory from businesses who might otherwise discard it.
Wearing used clothing was not always his choice. In childhood, hand-me-downs were a necessary part of life. Blount was one of five children with a single mother living in Okeechobee, Fla.
He attended Palm Beach Atlantic College, a Baptist college, where he met his wife. They have been married for 14 years. Lauren Blount, a social worker, found a job in North Carolina so the couple moved to Kernersville six years ago.
First, Eugene Blount worked for a lawn company that used chemicals to treat lawns along with more organic methods. However, the itch to start his own business with the premise of recycling prompted Blount to become an entrepreneur.
In addition, Blount has become a "green home" fanatic and creates all of their household cleaners himself to free their home of cleaners loaded with potentially harmful chemicals.
He concocts a mixture of tea tree oil and water to make a spritzer that is both air freshener and germ killer.
"Any essential oil will do, but I'm big on tea tree oil because it fights off bacteria. You can use lavender and peppermint, too," Blount said. "They help kill dust mites. I read the book, Is Your House Killing You? and it explained why we should air out our house."
He makes a paste out of vinegar and baking powder to use in the dishwasher. He wipes down their kitchen counter with tea tree oil that he finds at health-food stores.
A good toilet scrubber, Blount said, is the mixture of baking soda and vinegar. He uses baking soda to give their three Shar-Pei dogs a dry dog bath.
"You should see me. I buy a ton of baking soda every time I go to the store," Blount said.
Blount has experimented with using silver in the washing machine to replicate the nanoparticles of silver ions that is the newest and greatest in the washing machine industry. The use of silver ion nanoparticles breaks down germs within the wash cycle and cleans better, he said.
Samsung recently introduced the Silver Nano line with this technology. Blount has researched the concept and now washes clothes with pure silver.
"The silver creates friction. I've got something I'm working on with it that I plan to patent. I don't use detergent. I use the silver and vinegar as a softener," Blount said.
All of Blount's projects keep him busy and happy.
"I like to work. I'm one of the few people you'll meet who will want ‘Wishing I could work another day' on his tombstone," Blount said, adding that one day he and Lauren would love to build a log cabin secluded in the woods.
Meanwhile, Blount maintains his passion for recycling goods. Any given week will find him scouring the Triad for items people are more than willing to sell him.
Sometimes he visits yard sales; but through the three years he has been in business word-of-mouth advertising has been his best friend.
"People just find out that I take vacuum cleaners or have the parts, and they find me," Blount said. "Our company is just me and my wife and two men, Scottie Griffin and Charles Rondeau, that work for me. They are like family. They are on the same quest of recycling for healthier homes and a healthier environment."
■ Monica Young can be reached at cyoung9@triad.rr.com.
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