URBAN TREE RECYCLING
by Jill Fehrenbacher, 06/07/05
Ever wonder what happens to those trees on your street that get chopped down by the city? ?The East Bay Conservation Corps in Oakland did. According to their site, “nearly 3.8 billion board feet from urban trees are landfilled, burned, chipped or left to rot.” That represents 30% of the annual hardwood lumber production in America, lost.
Fortunately, they decided to do something about it and formed the Urban Tree Mill, an organization that will pick up your tree (providing it meets requirements) and mill it, preventing a most unnecessary trip to the landfill. Further, the money made from their wood sales goes right back into the community, sponsoring local community environmental and youth programs. This excellent example of an organization taking strides to make both environmental and social changes for the better should serve as a model for similar urban organizations. ?
Any readers in Oakland that need wood in the near future, don’t hesitate to drop these folks a line and let us know how it goes.
posted by Brian Corcoran
can’t forget about Urban Hardwoods in this discussion.
http://www.urbanhardwoods.com/
they do the same thing, except they make furniture out of the wood.
i think all you would have to do is integrate this with a tree planting service and you would have “cradle to grave” sustainability.