How do you all get rid of the sawdust and shavings from your dust extractors, I used to bag it and put it in the dustbin, but the binmen will not take it anymore, or take wood, I have been burning my offcuts at the bottom of the garden in a fire bin, but the sawdust and shavings seem to put the fire out, any ideas?
Getting rid of sawdust
- Thread starter murphy
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Keith 66
Established Member
This year after a big machining session i had a pile of big dustbin sacks full of cherry sawdust & planer chippings, I read somewhere to mix with compost to grow things. So a big bag of compost was mixed with it & it filled four large containers in which i grew potatoes. Best crop i have had in years!
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Wood stove. Burns beautifully and very quickly warms a room. We burn everything we can in the way of clean and dry wood waste, and cardboard and other non plastic waste.
Also in the garden but there's too much of it.
Also in the garden but there's too much of it.
RichardG
If at first you don’t succeed have a cup of tea.
I use it as mulch, if you can mix it with grass cuttings then it rots down surprising quickly. Failing that I use my washing machine brasier.
Stigmorgan
Established Member
I use my shavings/chippings asmulch on top of the flower beds
NicoWilson
Member
Petrol
Gumtree? Its amazing what people will take for free!
Two thoughts:
1 A friend of mine makes his own smoked salmon and has an arrangement with a local cabinet maker that he takes oak sawdust and then swaps it for smoked salmon
2 Don't overlook eBay. I've also sold all manner of leftovers e.g. sand, cement, stakes. Best thing is that I've been paid to have them taken away. I sold a builders bag of sand and the buyer spent every evening for a week shovelling sand into carrier bags that he then loaded into the back of his hatchback and drove home.
If composting I think the mantra is equal parts green and brown. Mine still goes in the composting bin, but after a big session I end up taking the bags to the dump as there is too much for the bin. At the dump they get me to add it to the green waste.
I tried planer chippings it on gumtree once (free to collect) as I had 5 large bags full, had a few enquiries but all asked if it was dust free, which I couldn't confirm so no one wanted to take it.
I tried planer chippings it on gumtree once (free to collect) as I had 5 large bags full, had a few enquiries but all asked if it was dust free, which I couldn't confirm so no one wanted to take it.
accipiter
Established Member
Guess I must be lucky as my local recycling centre accept it. I just take it (shavings and dust) round and put it in with the garden waste. Any offcuts not usable also get taken and put in the waste wood containers. Not really allowed to burn it... upsets the neighbours with the smoke.
I put sawdust and small shavings on the compost heap; mixing it with vegetable waste and grass cuttings of course. Larger shavings (eg from chainsaw) makes a good mulch and is excellent for putting on the muddy patch in front of the compost heap 
Burning sawdust would be a good use but it does tend to put out a fire unless its aerated. Another way would be to mix it with water and wall paper paste and then compress it in to blocks. Allow the blocks to dry out and then burn them... That's a lot of faff though! I guess if you produce a LOT of sawdust, it might be worth the effort.
Burning sawdust would be a good use but it does tend to put out a fire unless its aerated. Another way would be to mix it with water and wall paper paste and then compress it in to blocks. Allow the blocks to dry out and then burn them... That's a lot of faff though! I guess if you produce a LOT of sawdust, it might be worth the effort.
"... upsets the neighbours with the smoke"
Not just the neighbours. This is an irresponsible way of adding yet more carbon to tour overloaded atmosphere.
Not just the neighbours. This is an irresponsible way of adding yet more carbon to tour overloaded atmosphere.
Sorry, WoodchipWilbur, but this is a common misconception. Burning wood does not add more carbon to the air than the tree took out whilst growing. So burning wood is a carbon neutral process. If the sawdust/shavings/wood was not burnt but allowed to decay then eventually the carbon would enter the carbon cycle anyway. The only way to avoid this would be to bury the wood for a few million years and turn it into fossil fuel.
Burning fossil fuels does add more carbon to the carbon cycle as this is carbon that was stored away out of the carbon cycle a long time ago.
Burning wood rather than letting it decay does, on the other hand, add more particulate matter in to the air, for a time at least. However, this is an entirely different issue and can be addressed by burning wood more efficiently.
So in fact, to be environmentally responsible, mankind should get a larger proportion of its energy requirements from burning wood. This comes with the proviso that we then also need to grow sufficient trees to replace the ones we burn.
isaac3d; Your argument of the Conservation of Matter could be taken to excuse any release into the atmosphere.
The fact is still that sticking wood waste on a bonfire is the least efficient way to turn material into a toxic cocktail of waste gases. Even the heat generated is going to no useful function.
It's interesting that while firmly excluding the "eventual" of fossil fuels, you still include the "eventual" of composting and natural decay.
The fact is still that sticking wood waste on a bonfire is the least efficient way to turn material into a toxic cocktail of waste gases. Even the heat generated is going to no useful function.
It's interesting that while firmly excluding the "eventual" of fossil fuels, you still include the "eventual" of composting and natural decay.
woodieallen
Established Member
I simply get in my car and drive down to the local recycling place and tip it all in the wood bin. Sawdust. The lot.
The difference is between carbon in the 'short carbon cycle' and carbon in the 'long carbon cycle', they both have an eventual, but one eventual is 10s-100s of years, the other is 10000s-1000000s of years. It is the release of carbon from the long carbon cycle that is driving climate change. Carbon that was captured over millions of years is being released over tens of years.
The other factor that is playing a part is the impact of methane, which has 20x the greenhouse effect as CO2. If you send biological material to land fill it is highly likely to end up creating methane as it degrades.
I'd say from best to worst environmental impact is, direct reuse, ie animal bedding or as insulation material, consolidation into an other product ie chipboard, composting, burning in an industrial incinerator and utilising the waste heat, burning in a home appliance to generate usable heat. burning in the back garden, sending to landfill.
I don't do much that creates sawdust, but on the off chance that I"m not working by hand, I usually combine the shavings and sawdust - the sawdust will eventually burn, but it will burn easily if it's mixed with the shavings (something to allow it to get air).
I've burned pure planer shavings (and not TS sawdust, I don't generally have such a thing) by just lighting the outside of the pile and then it burns slowly over hours and hours, especially once there's some mass of it that's hot enough to keep the fire going.
I've burned pure planer shavings (and not TS sawdust, I don't generally have such a thing) by just lighting the outside of the pile and then it burns slowly over hours and hours, especially once there's some mass of it that's hot enough to keep the fire going.
AJB Temple
Finely figured
All of my sawdust and chippings this year gets mixed in with leaf mould and grass cuttings. However, we have a compost area that is 6 metres long by 3 metres wide and however deep we can pile it. Leaf collection is in progress via a Billy Goat vacuum and shred machine and in the past few days we have produced 7 cubic metres of shredded leaf droppings and 2 cubic metres of long grass toppings. All of the bagged extractor dust and chips from the past year (8 dustbin sized bags) has been mixed in with this and in two years it will be fully rotted and friable compost.
accipiter
Established Member
One thing to think about, *if* making it available for animal bedding via gumtree etc., is what wood the chipping/shavings/dust is from with some wood being toxic.
Myfordman
AKA 9Fingers
I only offer common European wood shavings for animal bedding use just in case. Anything with mdf or other contaminants go in the bottom of the wheely bin with domestic waste on top. Good luck to the bin boys if they want to delve in to check all the way to the bottom.
I tend not to generate all that much. I use shavings from my planes to get the stove fire going. When I do manage to generate enough from the thicknesser I will burn that too. It can burn for quite a considerable time. We don't have a gas supply. So, just to add, our stove heats the ground floor, three radiators and a towel rail on the first floor and a large water tank of very hot water in the loft, all gravity fed.
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