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Thread: Disposing of shavings and sawdust with yard waste

  1. #1
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    Disposing of shavings and sawdust with yard waste

    I just got confirmation from Seattle Public Utilities that they will take clean wood shavings in the yard waste collection. Obviously, no treated lumber is permitted. They need to be bagged (I use paper leaf bags). We're entitled to put out about 130 gal. of yard waste every 2 weeks, vs. about 25 gallons of trash each week. It's much cheaper to dispose of chips in yard waste, and they get recycled (composted) rather than sent to a landfill.

    In Seattle, garbage collection is expensive and you're limited to one smallish can a week. Extra garbage = extra fees. Also, you have to bag wood chips before putting them in the can, which means small bags so they'll fit with other garbage. It's a pain.

    I have no idea how many other big cities have yard waste collection. Of those that do, I imagine many would permit collection of clean wood shavings--just ask.

    Cheers,
    Warren

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    My area accepts sawdust and even small wood chips in the 'green' barrel. Just because I care, I seperate any sawdust or chips that shouldn't go in there although they do not require you to(?).
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  3. #3
    What a waste of perfectly good "speedy-dry." Mine goes over to my automotive shop.
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  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by glenn bradley View Post
    Just because I care, I seperate any sawdust or chips that shouldn't go in there although they do not require you to(?).
    Do you mean that you exclude walnut and other species that don't belong in compost? That strikes me as a good idea, but I don't know how much it matters, given the volumes of waste we're talking about. A few gallons of walnut shavings probably wouldn't make a difference when mixed with a whole city's grass clippings. Of course, chemically treated wood would be a different story. I don't use much walnut, so it's a pretty academic problem for me.

  5. #5
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    I pour mine on my flower beds as free hardwood mulch. If you find that it is not to your liking, you can always cover it with the darker stuff that everyone pays for . . . you just have to use less of it. In a year or so, it's black gold that the plants love. Obviously, I don't dump PT or MDF chips on my beds. Sawdust also makes great "browns" for composting.

    Everytime I empty my bin or sweep up my shop, it's like I got free bags of mulch!

  6. #6
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    I compost some of mine and use it for garden paths, too. The latter in fresh cherry shavings is outstanding to look at right after a rain storm!
    --

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  7. #7
    Does no-one over there have neighbours who have rabbits???? You're not making a mess or waste- just creating real good wood bedding for "bunnikins"- lot's of brownie points and the kids even sweep up for you! A real win-win situation. Obviously stuff like Paduak is out but most native softwoods and hard woods are fine.

    Also a friend who makes ceramics uses the chips for his "raku"(??) work- no I don't know what it is but he likes the stuff!

    iAN

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by glenn bradley View Post
    My area accepts sawdust and even small wood chips in the 'green' barrel. Just because I care, I seperate any sawdust or chips that shouldn't go in there although they do not require you to(?).
    Mine says "branches up to 3' long and 3" diameter", which I suspect means they're running the whole truckload through a chipper before it goes into the composter/whatever. (The other clue is that they say "no palm fronds", which I understand don't get along well with standard chippers.)

    And they specifically do not want it bagged or wrapped in any way.
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Homer Faucett View Post
    I pour mine on my flower beds as free hardwood mulch. If you find that it is not to your liking, you can always cover it with the darker stuff that everyone pays for . . . you just have to use less of it. In a year or so, it's black gold that the plants love. Obviously, I don't dump PT or MDF chips on my beds. Sawdust also makes great "browns" for composting.

    Everytime I empty my bin or sweep up my shop, it's like I got free bags of mulch!
    be careful.

    Pouring sawdust on flower beds will change a few things. Your Ph may drop, as will your Nitrogen levels in your soil.

    There is a big difference between wood chips and sawdust. The woodchips will decompose a lot slower.

    Now with that said, i have been dumping mine in my fence rows as a decorative mulch. I have some Hostas

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    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Clemans View Post
    Do you mean that you exclude walnut and other species that don't belong in compost? That strikes me as a good idea, but I don't know how much it matters, given the volumes of waste we're talking about. A few gallons of walnut shavings probably wouldn't make a difference when mixed with a whole city's grass clippings. Of course, chemically treated wood would be a different story. I don't use much walnut, so it's a pretty academic problem for me.
    I'm not super picky as to species. As you say; based on the scale of what they pick up on a day, let alone all week, a little walnut won't hurt. Just to please my own conscience; pressure treated stuff, MDF, anything with vinyl or melamine, plywood . . . all that stuff is trash. The rest is "wood" ;-)
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe Mioux View Post
    be careful.

    Pouring sawdust on flower beds will change a few things. Your Ph may drop, as will your Nitrogen levels in your soil.

    There is a big difference between wood chips and sawdust. The woodchips will decompose a lot slower.

    Now with that said, i have been dumping mine in my fence rows as a decorative mulch. I have some Hostas
    There's really not much to be careful about.

    Since most plants, especially woodland plants such as hosta that grow under a canopy in their natural habitat, live in an environment of decomposing leaves and other assorted hardwood and softwood mulm that is decomposing on the forest floor, decomposing hardwood and softwood sawdust and shavings simply recreate a similar mulch. I have over 150 varieties of hosta, and have been gardening and landscaping for longer than I have been woodworking.

    It takes a substantial difference in pH and a large mass of that different pH material to make any appreciable change in pH in the soil, especially here in the Midwest where we have so much lime in the water that I can't get my hydrangea to turn blue, even when aluminum sulfate is added (I've got a background in chemistry). True, having more brown's on the beds may absorb some free nitrogen as they break down, but I fertilize in the spring anyway, and have never noticed a problem with any of my plants looking anemic since I started adding organic matter.

    I dump tons (literally) of composted horse manure on some my beds each year from my neighbor's horse stalls, and heap plenty of sawdust on other beds. All I get is bigger plants the next year. If you ask me, slower decomposing wood chips just mean that I have to wait longer until they have become a more useful product for my plants . . . and I have to pay for them. Sawdust works as well or better, and it's a natural byproduct of something I do anyway. It's a win-win.

  12. #12
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    Find someone with chickens. It makes great stuff to put on the floors of chicken houses to keep the floors relatively clean--just gets swept up. And let the chicken-house owner worry about it. That's what we do.

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  13. #13
    Most horse people would take all the shavings/sawdust you can make. Its is becoming harder and harder to find.

    My daughter is in the horse business and my dust collector is plumbed directly into her chip shed. She is always encouraging me to plane more wood.

    Fred Mc.

  14. #14
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    I generate way more chips than I could use in my flower beds or for composting in a Suburban back year. I did have a coworker that took planer shavings for horse bedding, but he no longer has the horses. I just send mine in the trash. I'll look into the yard waste thing. I think we can haul ourselves to a place a couple of miles away...joe

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Homer Faucett View Post
    There's really not much to be careful about.

    Since most plants, especially woodland plants such as hosta that grow under a canopy in their natural habitat, live in an environment of decomposing leaves and other assorted hardwood and softwood mulm that is decomposing on the forest floor, decomposing hardwood and softwood sawdust and shavings simply recreate a similar mulch. I have over 150 varieties of hosta, and have been gardening and landscaping for longer than I have been woodworking.

    It takes a substantial difference in pH and a large mass of that different pH material to make any appreciable change in pH in the soil, especially here in the Midwest where we have so much lime in the water that I can't get my hydrangea to turn blue, even when aluminum sulfate is added (I've got a background in chemistry). True, having more brown's on the beds may absorb some free nitrogen as they break down, but I fertilize in the spring anyway, and have never noticed a problem with any of my plants looking anemic since I started adding organic matter.

    I dump tons (literally) of composted horse manure on some my beds each year from my neighbor's horse stalls, and heap plenty of sawdust on other beds. All I get is bigger plants the next year. If you ask me, slower decomposing wood chips just mean that I have to wait longer until they have become a more useful product for my plants . . . and I have to pay for them. Sawdust works as well or better, and it's a natural byproduct of something I do anyway. It's a win-win.
    Bit of background on me, I'm in the greenhouse business. Once I had 7000 geraniums go bad because the my hort supplier substituted my potting media. this occured on three benches were you could see the beginning and the end of the bad potting mix. Ph was down around 3 -3.5

    Hydrangeas, Blue, Ph around 5 5.5, and top dress with AlS three times even four times a year.

    We should be careful using generic terms like flowerbeds. Yes, your hostas and my hostas that set out under our trees won't be affected. In fact, two weeks ago I just dumped a bunch of red and white oak sawdust all around my Hostas. So, yes I agree with you that you won't hurt them or even some outdoor hardy ferns.

    Back 25 years ago, we had a very large neighborhood garden, about 6000 sq ft on our property. The neighbor went to a sawmill and got 5or 6 pick up loads, maybe more, of sawdust and threw it on part of the garden.(He was a well-intentioned neighbor but you couldn't tell him anything, it always had to be his way) That part of the garden was ruined for two years. Finally it came back.

    Do a little test with sawdust. Make a slurry of sawdust and distilled water and filter it through a paper towel, (we use filter paper, just because we do this often in the greenhouses) and then check the Ph of the water. You can get test strips from various L&G centers or pharmacy. This way you will know.

    The very last thing I would add to any of my custom blended potting mixes would be sawdust. Bark chips are fine, burnt sawdust works, (Scotts Professional potting mixes Metro Mix 360 uses it) also works.

    Like I mentioned I too use it on my Hostas and in my fence row to keep weeds down and that is fine.

    I just get concerned when people use the term flower beds, when discussing sawdust.

    Oh yea, one other thing, I don't use it anywhere close to my house. I don't need critters, insects taking up residency near my foundation.


    Joe

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