Wood is generally considered to be a renewable resource. However, conservation is critical to sustainable forestry and protection of the environment. Wood is solid waste and can be disposed of at the landfill sites. But there are other and better options than disposalat the landfills.
Sources OfWoodWaste
Both residential and commercial activities produce wood waste. Things like sawdust, twigs, tree stumps, pallets, scrap lumber and branches are regarded as wood waste. There are many sources of wood waste. Examples include lumber mills, branches removed from orchards, landscaping, old movie sets, furniture manufacturelandscaping, building construction and demolition, wooden crates and pallets etc.
Options for disposing wood
- Disposing AtAWoodProcessingFacility
A considerable amount of solid waste is generated during the demolition and construction of buildings. Contractors stand to benefit from not sending their solid waste to the landfills. Find out about wood processing facilities in your city, and dispose your wood waste there. Thisoption costs about one-third the price of sending thesame amount of wood to the landfills. There are wood processing facilities that do not even charge anything for disposing clean wood.
- Reuse
Wood can be recycled easily to create new products. You can donate your timber to a high school wood workshop. If you need weathered wood for your landscaping projects, you can use wood from a demolished old fence. Wood shipping boxes and pallets can be fixed and used over and over again.
Utility poles and railroad ties are examples of treated wood that can easily be reused. The egg y can be used to control erosion, or they can be used to build bridges, barriers in parking areas and fences. Are you aware, though, about the public health concerns and the potential soil and water contamination associated with the use of CCA for wood treatment? CCA is chromate copper arsenate. You should take the time to educate yourself about it. Lead painted wood can also be dangerous.
- Recycling
Wood waste that cannot be reused in its original form can be processed into a range of products such as:
- sawdust for animal bedding;
- compost for soil enhancement;
- mulch for weed control;
- wood flour for cleaning up spills;
- fuel pellets for wood stoves;
- wood chips for landscaping;
- wood chips for trail stabilization;
It can be left to decompose and create compost for soil enhancements that conserve water, reduce or totally eliminate the need for fertilizers and reduce soil erosion.
- Biomass-to-energy
Maybe reuse and recycling and composting are not possible options for you. What’s the next best thing to do? Store the wood in a carefully labeled and segregated disposal bin until you have time on your hands to send it to a biomass-to-energy producer. Such a producer can generate steam and electricity using the wood. The combustion of any fuel results in emissions, but compared to burning most fossil fuels, burning wood is considered “clean”.
- Landfills
The last disposal option to consider is to send the wood to the landfills. This should always be the last option.
So, which is best?
There are multiple options for you to choose from, so it’s best not to discard that wood. If discarding the wood is inevitable, the next best thing to do is to improvise another use for the wood which involves the least amount of processing before it can be reused. If you still can’t find a way to dispose your wood, call up a junk removal company’s wood disposal services department and arrange for their dumpster bin rentals. Dispose the wood in there, and call them to come pick up the dumpster. They have plenty of options available to them for disposing the wood.