In need of help with Wood Reclycling project?

Question

Please assume you own or work within a trade that uses wood as a primary material. Im doing a project that is due soon. I wasnt able to contact enough people for proper feedback. IMPROVISE you answers as if you worked for a company that deals with wood and thus has wood scraps

·What is your company name and what do you do?

·Do you deem your company to be environmentally friendly?

·How informed are you on current Recycling centers, companies and programs?

·Does your company have a commitment to the environment? If yes, what is it?

·When it comes to selecting a recycling partner, what criteria(s) do you deem to be most important?

·If you have a current recycling partner, how could they better themselves?

·Define the ideal recycling partner?

·Ideally, what kind of materials would your company like to be able to recycle?

·The materials you wish to recycle, where are they coming from?

Answer 1

Chisel Me Timbers (http://www.chiselmetimbers.com)

Chainsaw carvers/wood workers (we also are partners in a small saw mill that is also mobile).

Environmentally Friendly:  As carvers yes -- we recycle wood that would normally into the burn pile (thereby releasing pollutants into the air, soil and water).  We are also moving more toward low VOC/natural/non-toxic/EFG methods of staining and finishing pieces.  As a saw mill yes -- we have a policy that we only accept wood from responsible logging.  We recycle by-products into garden mulch, sawdust that is made into cat litter (Feline Pine).  The drying kiln is 70% powered by solar energy.  We have solar hot water in spring thru fall, and composting toilets that use sawdust and shavings.   We use mules to move logs in ecological and environmentally sensitive areas.  

Scraps are frequent, because if there is any metal in a log (nail, spike, bullet, wire fencing, etc.) , it is now potentially lethal and cannot be milled, chipped, or sawn, and must be discarded.  Some scraps are picked through by us and others for firewood, some scrap boards are used for people's own projects, and some scraps we carve.

Our recycling partners consist of local folk who scavenge, us as carvers and wood artists, and carriers provided by outfits that haul off bark chips to be packaged as garden mulch, and saw dust to a plant that makes cat litter.  Sometimes we can't get around it, and we have to have a burn, and the ashes are hauled off to a landfill by a local chap with a dumpster.

When it comes to selecting a recycling "partner" I'm not sure exactly what you mean.  The two plants send their own trucks, but the dude who hauls off the ashes is a small, local, independent operator, and I guess that is a huge chunk of the criteria.  

What could a recycling partner do better?  Well, truck #2 from the wood chip plant makes some strange popping noise when he changes gears, and we can hear him half an hour away coming up the mountain.  A charming sound a few mountains over; not so much when he's backing into the yard.  The ideal recycling partner would be, for the most part, a small independent operator who knows and is in tune with our area; would be fair in their pricing, sound in their values -- both moral and environmental -- and would help/look for creative ways to recycle scraps of wood (and, send a few clients our way now and then ;->)

There isn't too much left over to recycle, but of those, we sure wish there was something we could do with hemlock.  Hemlock stinks, and I mean seriously stinks.  It cannot be used for building, carving, cat litter, mulch, and, as a soft wood, isn't suitable for a fireplace.  We just haven't figured out what good can be done with it yet.  The other items that pose a quandary are pieces that are infested with an insidious, ugly, wood eating grub which we call a pine borer.   The kiln isn't hot enough to kill them, and ether is the only thing outside a  microwave and boiling temperatures that kills these things (they infest anything quickly).  Ideally, a recycling partner would be able to do something with these infested woods -- and quickly -- and dispose of them in such a way the grubs can't infest other trees, and using no poisons and toxins.  This is where much of our burning comes from, as infested wood has to be cleaned or destroyed as quickly as possible.  Other than that, we recycle just about everything else we can except for worn and broken machinery belts -- saw blades we can always find a buyer for -- and the like.

I hope that helped.