Construction Waste Recycling: Lumber

Another "Going Green" Business Idea, with a good will twist!

Regardless of the rise and fall in construction spending, there is a dilemma builder’s face on a daily basis: construction waste, specifically wood.

Volume waste wood is the largest percentage of debris created on a new construction site. The EPA estimates the United States will dispose of nearly 1.2 billion board feet of salvageable structural lumber; the equivalent of almost 250,000 single-family homes! That does not take into account the 1.2 billion BF of deconstruction and outbuilding removal debris.

Several solutions that have been tried over the years:

• Waste transfer stations give you a small discount if you have the wood source separated.
• Some waste sites are dedicated to just recycling wood.
• Burning it on site is also a rare, but sometimes used option.

How is wood recycled?

Typically it is put into a processor and ground up into a product called Hog Fuel. This product has three basic uses:

• It’s used for bedding for farm animals.
• It can be used for muddy pathways, or erosion control.
• Most often it is burned in boilers to run mills and sometimes municipal energy sources.

All of the above are good things, however I believe there are better ways to reuse and recycle waste wood. Being in construction for several years now I have seen that much of the waste is reusable product.

Here is the inspired idea:

Find a large industrial site in a central location. This becomes a drop center for source separated lumber waste. The lumber is then separated by hand into sections.

• Resale/reusable
• Sell as firewood
• Hog fuel

Much of the lumber can be reused to build dog houses, sheds, and things of that nature. The reusable lumber can be sold to the public, used to manufacture a product or sold to a company that does. It is against code in most, if not all areas to reuse lumber for new construction, however, it can be used for home improvement and hobby projects.

There is also a lot of quality burnable wood that can be gleaned. Believe it or not there is still a lot of people that use a wood burning fire place as their main source of heat. The waste wood burns well, and with a typical cord of wood reaching upwards of $200.00 this provides an economical alternative.

Inevitably there will be some wood waste, which is used for “hog fuel”.

The beautiful part about this idea is financially it is fairly self sufficient. Dump fees would be assessed. The products, firewood, extra wood and hog fuel can all be sold for profit.

The Good Will Twist:

This project can go way beyond making money; it meets a social need as well. Besides doing more to help the environment, and making a pretty decent living, the facility can become a life and skills training location for students and adults looking to learn a trade or turn their life around.

Your trainers and teachers can probably be found amongst retired construction workers and local agencies often have displaced workers, people with special needs and those undergoing rehabilitation who need the opportunity to work in businesses setting.

Workers can learn retail, sorting (problem solving), bidding, design, customer service, sales, framing, and heavy equipment operation. This valuable training will go with the worker as they hopefully leave for better paying jobs. The relationship becomes mutually beneficial; you get cheap labor and they receive great training.

Grant funding for projects of this nature are everywhere. Vocational and rehab centers that offer skills training are few and far between and recycling is the vogue industry to throw money at right now.

This business is not for beginners and would require some upfront investment. If you are good at research, have connections in the industry and have access to a grant writer things should go pretty smoothly. Ideally you will already have access to a large amount of debris to begin with as well.

As the use of salvaged lumber continues to grow in popularity, permitting and building codes will change become and more accommodating. There is and will continue to be a large amount of money to be made with construction waste and we only covered the wood in this article.

References:

All links under: Publications > Building Deconstruction, Lumber Salvage, Wood Recycling by Dr. Robert Falk EPA RCRA in Focus Used wood becoming a more popular material

More Information:

Sourcebook: Construction Waste Wood Waste Recycling

Companies Doing It:

http://www.thereusepeople.org/ http://www.andersonsalternatives.com/ http://www.wood-yew-waste.com/