This is part of an ongoing series about the materials used in our products. Click here to read all the installments to date.
You may be saying to yourself, “A materials blog about wood? Everyone knows that wood is one of the most commonly recycled materials on the face of the planet! Evan must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel now.” Well smart guy, while people are indeed doing a pretty good job of recycling wood, we’re still sending tons of wood waste to landfills. In fact, in 2002 alone, the country sent 63 MILLION metric tons of wood waste to landfills! This wood waste commonly originates from three primary sources:
- Municipal: Homes produce wood waste in the form of tossed out furniture, DIY wood waste, etc.
- Industrial and commercial: Manufacturers of wood products (furniture, construction materials) tend to have a lot of left over wood waste
- Construction and demolition: When building or destroying a house, there can be tons of leftover structural timber, unwanted furniture, etc.
In fact, on average, a single person uses the equivalent of a 100-foot-tall Douglas fir in wood and paper products every year!
Thankfully, there are many resources available for the recycling of wood. The most common way of recycling wood is by turning it into mulch. There are companies all over the country jockeying for wood waste, and they are willing to pay anywhere from $12 to $24 per ton! Wood chips are also considered an excellent source of fuel for boilers and furnaces. If you don’t have any wood waste around the house but you want to contribute, just make sure to buy recycled and reclaimed wood products. As long as there is a demand for these types of products, suppliers will continue to crank them out.
So next time you find yourself with some left over lumber, don’t send it off the rot in a landfill. Find a use for it! Or better yet, support upcycling artisans. Click here for upcycled, wood-based products.
Share below your ideas for recycling, upcycling and reusing wood.
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Evan Hopkins is one of Hipcycle's fantastic interns, and a general writer of fantastic things. When he isn't encouraging green living through his writing, he enjoys going on adventures, swimming, and being awesome.
