Here's a great value-added story I heard recently. A landfill operator in North Carolina who accepts trees and brush bought a portable sawmill and is milling "waste wood" (logs brought in by tree trimmers, homeowners, etc.). He produces lumber and sells it to local hobbyists, furniture makers, etc., as well as making "packaging timber" which is sold to a steel manufacturer. His prime value-added product consists of surveying stakes, which he makes and sells green to utilities and land surveyors. He will soon be adding a small kiln to his operation so he can market dry lumber. Not bad for an operation that charges folks for the wood they deliver (tipping fee). Most of us have to buy our raw material as opposed to getting a payment to accept it.
Steve Bratkovich, forum technical advisor
Steve Bratkovich, forum technical advisor
Is the competition hurting the production market? No, the quantities nor the demand are there.
Is it a favorable market niche? Yes, it pays its way, provides wood to individuals who couldn't otherwise support their hobby, creates availability of woods not on the market and saves landfill space. It utilizes trees that have, as a rule, been turned away from big mills because of tramp metal, odd lengths, large diameters and lack of quantity of single species.
Utility companies, tree surgeons and land clearing companies are happy to find a place to send their logs. It saves them money in dump fees and provides them with much-needed "good advertisement" in this environmentally sensitive society.
The unfortunate part of the operation is that the individuals who carry the wood will ultimately deliver limbs, trash, stumps, etc. because they don't know and because they mix loads of trash and logs on dump trucks and can't separate the good stuff. As well meaning as they are, it causes a hardship on the small mill.
The demise of "short wood" pulp wood haulers makes it difficult to clean up the small non-sawable wood because there is no place for it to go. The pulp mills that used urban wood for pulp and fuel have converted, almost exclusively, to tree length logs or recycled paper products and the short wood haulers are disappearing.
City governments don't appreciate the problem of urban wood. Councils and zoning departments who don't understand or care are making it difficult for a small mill or firewood company to exist in a lot of areas. There needs to be a government lobby to promote the use of urban woods as well as small businesses to utilize it. Governments can and do squash small business in this area because it isn't understood.
Sam Sherrill has written a booklet (published by Wood-Mizer) called "How to Get Valuable Hardwoods for Pennies." It describes the 'How To' of converting urban trees into lumber and value-added products. Anyone interested in the booklet can get a free copy by sending a #10 (letter size) SASE with two first class stamps to Sam Sherrill, Harvesting Urban Timber, 5091 Beechwood Rd., Milford, OH 45150.
Steve Bratkovich, forum technical advisor
Comment from contributor D:
In the Northeast, where there are many homes presently being heated with oil, and with oil becoming more and more unsustainable economically, it would be a great benefit to the few of us rural dwellers who own woodburning boilers and other outdoor woodburning equipment that provides our primary source of heat for our homes to have access to the unlimited supply of 'short', trash, brush, slash and other debris left by loggers and landclearers, utilities and town dpws. It's incredibly wasteful - all those BTU's go up in smoke in a brushfire without finding some use for them.
