Wood Waste

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matthew
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Wood Waste

Post by matthew » Wed Dec 04, 2019 9:37 am

Like most of you probably, i do accumulate a lot of wood waste, offcuts, dust, odd shaped pine, ply and MDF bits from jigs and frames ... and while i tend to hoard every last scrap of spruce, maple and so on for the many repairs and restorations i do, the wood bin just grows and grows. I put wood dust and jointer chips into my compost at home.

In the past i've separated the MDF from the other wood, and given the wood to friends for kindling, or burnt it in my fire pit BBQ when conditions allow. I love having a backyard fire. Bangers, backstrap, eggplant and then marshmallows late in the night. And nice smokey clothes the next day ...

BUT all the current wildfires and the consequential tonnes of carbon going into the atmosphere make me really more conscious of not adding to the problem, albeit a very tiny bit compared to the zillions of trees and underbrush going up in smoke.

Even though i'm programmed to re-use, recycle, avoid adding to the council waste pile ... I'm now thinking the best and most environmentally friendly outcome for my timber - and timber product - waste is indeed, simply groundfill!

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

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kiwigeo
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by kiwigeo » Wed Dec 04, 2019 11:27 am

My thoughts. Wood consigned to ground fill eventually decomposes....and produces CO2 in the process. I currently use a wood stove as my primary source of heating in my current house (new house will be Passivhaus....very little heating required) so any wood scraps I burn means burning less red gum from the wood yard down the road.
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matthew
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by matthew » Wed Dec 04, 2019 12:43 pm

I'm not sure carbon is always a byproduct of bacterial or fungal decomposition ... this is why we compost green waste, to put carbon back into the soil ... i would have thought it remained a residue, unless oxidised (burnt) but who know, maybe you're right. And i guess if my mates don't burn my kindling, they'll just buy some instead. Still, makes me pause.

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matthew
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by matthew » Wed Dec 04, 2019 12:55 pm

My reading matter for the holidays ...

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Australia

blackalex1952
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by blackalex1952 » Wed Dec 04, 2019 12:57 pm

The amount of wood waste that a luthier produces is not that much when compared to a factory making Chinese cheapo guitars. I have wood heating at home and a lot of the wood goes into that. I also make firelighters out of the sawdust and chips collected in my dust extraction system. An egg carton full of sawdust with a tiny amount of kerosene dripped on to it makes a firelighter! Kindling from the offcuts and it's not long before warming up. Very cold winters here in the alps. I think it would be a bit of a hassle to try to keep craftwood and MDF separate from the material in the dust extractor. There is often a straight edge planed on the jointer, often for an MDF jig. So composting or mulching any MDF or commercially produced plywood, I think, would be unhealthy for a start. A good way to acidify soil. Also, wood chips and dust have the potential to spontaineously combust due to the high surface area in a compost or mulching role. There was a huge pile of sawdust at a house I once lived in which did this. Pretty hard to fully extinguish, it just kept on going and re lighting itself until I finally had let the whole lot burn away. It was a rather large pile! But I do dispose of some material by piling it up with all my winter prunings for a yearly bonfire. I also have an outdoor heater which gets fed a lot of wood.
Yes, living consciously with an awareness of environmental issues is not an easy philosophy to come fully to terms with! But there are some huge polluters on this planet, and to be practical, luthiers need to be forgiven! Forgive a luthier today!!! Buy a handmade instrument and avoid factory guitars!
Cheers! Ross
"Everything I say on the topic is based solely upon inexperience and assumption!"

blackalex1952
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by blackalex1952 » Wed Dec 04, 2019 1:25 pm

I had a quick look at the .pdf article...nature isn't in any kind of hurry when it comes to the decomposition of wood it seems...but it eventually gets the job done. Go for a walk in a forest! On the subject of the bushfires, most of the really hot fires have occurred due to large fuel loads building up in these forests since Europeans decided to turn Australia into a resource based economy, as well as failing to understand the fundamentals of the indigenous fuel reduction and seed management practices. So now we have huge hot burn fires - not good for an ecosystem called a forest! The government departments charged with the huge task of maintaining forests are remarkably underfunded, and at least in Victoria, the bureaucrazy is basically in need of yet another overhaul. No one can actually pronounce it's name!!! To me this is a core issue for this country, and putting mental energy into the issues created by my luthierie is not such a big issue when compared to thinking of solutions on a much larger scale... half the planet is on fire. I have had the largest bushfire in Victoria within 2km of my house for the last two weeks! Scary at this time of year, and the amount of material that has gone into the atmosphere would be huge. Even with rain there will be smouldering stumps and logs available for summer. The area in question is remote and has not burned since the 1968 fires here, so a huge fuel load has caused a very hot fire and killed many trees and plants. Lots of carbon there!! The only thing I can really take comfort in is the unstoppable restorative power and patience of nature.
Cheers! Ross
"Everything I say on the topic is based solely upon inexperience and assumption!"

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kiwigeo
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by kiwigeo » Wed Dec 04, 2019 1:26 pm

Interesting reading. Did they distinguish between woods with and without preservative? I assume this might be mentioned in the body of the paper....which you have to pay to download.


Er ok hang on..yeah if I scroll down there's the full paper :/


matthew wrote:
Wed Dec 04, 2019 12:55 pm
My reading matter for the holidays ...

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Australia
Martin

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matthew
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by matthew » Wed Dec 04, 2019 2:27 pm

I keep a big bin of sawdust next to my compost heap. With every kitchen bucket of wet scraps, i cover with a bucket of sawdust. And occasionally throw on a handful of urea pellets. It keeps the flies at bay and rots down very nicely.

Yes I get that we are only very small fish in a very big sea.

And then there's the issue of disposing of old turps and meths etc. How to do this in an environmentally friendly way? My research result says simply ... let it evaporate.

benldwyer
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by benldwyer » Thu Dec 19, 2019 8:46 pm

When I was at ghe WA guit fest a few months ago I bought some art made by an artist using offcuts. Great idea I reckon.
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simonm
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Re: Wood Waste

Post by simonm » Wed Dec 25, 2019 9:19 am

I believe some people use sawdust in conjunction with composting toilets.

p.s. Over the years I have seen various woodworkers on Ebay selling offcuts for things like marquetry.
Today I saw a Spanish tonewood dealer (Maderas Barber) is selling offcuts by the pallet quoting the calorific value for firewood. The pallets are single species.


Warning. Begin rant. :-)

I wouldn't worry about CO2 in any case. All the other environment issues will come home to roost before CO2 makes any difference. General pollution, destruction of various aspects of our ecological niche, overfishing, pollution of water and whatever else you want to add to the list are a 0-20 year problem CO2 is a 50 year problem as worst. Fix some of the others and the CO2 is automatically fixed anyway.

Emphasis on CO2 is predicated by politicians, including greens, loving sound bites. MBA managers like "deliverables" - CO2 is easy to measure = deliverables for political sound bites and money making carbon trading. Do something about CO2, feel good and make a profit. Then go out and clear cut some forest to put photovoltaic "green energy" plants in place. We're so green we gotta wear shades.

Reduction of bio mass and species diversity is much harder to measure and so much harder to package in terms of "deliverables" and no profitable carbon trading equivalent in sight so it is ignored. A somebody else's problem. I was in a nature park beside the Rhine river in Germany in the summer. One of the exhibits said that in that region there has been something like and 80% reduction in the number of birds is the last 40 years due to loss of habitat.

Absolutely zilch to do with "global warming" and everything to do with our way of living. The were a couple of articles this year about a re-evaluation (by a US biologist) of an area of Brazilian rainforest after 30-40 years. The numbers were even worse. Bio-mass dramatically down 80? but even worse diversity down by 90%+? - I may have mixed up the two numbers but it really doesn't matter. Either way it is close to total annihilation.

/rant. ;-)

The good news is that Oz is big enough and sparsely enough populated that you guys have a better than average chance of getting the environmental stuff right in the end. There is just more environment for everybody.

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