How To Get Rid Of Your Sawdust

[J T]

If you don't want to look, it's another type of sawdust stove.

JOAT Measure twice, cut once, swear repeatedly.

[Daniel Martin]

If burning the saw dust is considered as a way of protecting the environment then you are better off throwing it away. Or use it as compost.

Daniel

[Dave Hinz]

Um, it'll give off the same amount of CO2 when it rots, Daniel, as when you burn it. Amazingly enough, that's the same amount of CO2 that the tree absorbed into that same wood when it was growing.

[Robert Galloway]

CO2 aside. Unless you have a whole lot of it, it's worth more as a soil ammendment than as fuel. Best made into compost with your grass clippings. If you're in the habit of putting your grass clippings out for the trash man, then forget I said anything.

bob g.

Dave H>

[Dave Hinz]

It depends on what kind of sawdust you're talking about, though. Walnut would be unwise, and many of the exotics/jungle woods may actually be toxic in a compost situation.

Grass clippings? Trash man? I see your words but am unclear on how the two could be related. You mean there are actually places where yard waste is allowed into the trash collection stream?

[Robert Galloway]

Yes and no. Same guys. Marked bags indicating yard waste. Two different streams where we live. (Plymouth, MN) Mine goes into the compost pile with the contents of my dust collector garbage can. Walnut is toxic to a few plants but most not and I think composting takes most of the sting out of it anyway. I don't use a lot of walnut but what I do use, I've never notices any soil sterilizing effect.

bob g.

Dave H> >

[Charles Spitzer]

sure. when i demo'd my bathroom; concrete, tiles, wallboard. palm tree cuttings when i bothered to trim them, etc all went into the weekly pickup. granted they have weight limits, but i bent those pretty heavily (no pun intended) when i disposed of the concrete bed that was under the wall tiles.

[max]

We used to give our sawdust to the stables. They take most kinds but do not want Walnut. Sometimes they would pick it up and sometimes we would deliver. We also found that our local lumberyard had a huge Dust Collector and would allow us to dump our dust in with theirs. max

[Dave Hinz]

Ah, right. Around here, if you want to get rid of yard waste, you take it to the local compost yard. You can also get topsoil from the same place, coincidentally enough. Maybe the hassle of hauling it, combined with the "you're gonna compost it anyway, so you might as well do it yourself" might help to educate people. Then again, probably not.

I'm not willing to risk it, with the walnut especially. I tend to use a lot of it, since I have that big stack in the basement - 500 or so BF left from an auction a few years back (already gloated here so this mention doesn't count, I think). If I could burn it for heat, I think I'd prefer to do so. Far as the environmental effects of the smoke or whatever, well, I'm up 10,000 trees or so in my planted-vs-cut score, so I pretty much don't care.

Dave Hinz

[Dave Hinz]

Well, most of that is trash, after all. I remember when we remodeled our upstairs bedroom when I was a teen; the limit was 2 bags of construction waste per week, per house. Operative phrase there was "per house...".

When you're the paperboy, people don't notice you walking around early in the morning with bags of construction waste, I have found. I'm sure the garbage men knew what was going on, but as many of the houses were "participating" in the "share the trash" program, they wouldn't know where it was really from.

[George]

Less the part that you took out of the carbon cycle by making furniture out of it.

[Dave Hinz]

Well there ya go. So woodworking is good for the planet. Gotta cut down the trees to save 'em, here, let me explain how this works...

[Joe AutoDrill]

My home town will take ANYTHING I put out except for huge amounts of concrete or stone. Anything else is a go.

I haven't tried used motor oil (and won't becuase it is simply stupid) but I've seen the elderly neighbor do it and cringed... Our local garbage pick up is amazing. If you have a LOT of stuff like a full house worth of demolition or old furniture, etc. then you call them before noon the day prior and they send a separate truck just for you.

And... It's all included in my super-low NJ taxes.

Regards, Joe Agro, Jr.

[Andy Dingley]

Why ? Surely the mineral content is much the same as wood ash, and that's all the typical gardener is really going to need.

[Andy Dingley]

Cut the trees to save the forest.

There's already a bumper sticker for it.

[Ba r r y]

My brother-in-law has a forestry degree from Paul Smith College in NY. According to him, they do this all the time.

Barry

[George]

[nospambob]

[J T]

Sat, Nov 20, 2004, 8:43am george@least (George) asled" Think about it. Can you "preserve" a thing not dead?

Cher.

Joan Rivers.

JOAT Measure twice, cut once, swear repeatedly.

[George]

Phyllis Diller, too, but I think there's a lot of preservative involved there.