Lumber not landfills: Use urban wood instead of throwing it away
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| A conference table in Harrisonburg is made from an ash tree reclaimed by the city government’s urban wood program. [WHSV] |
By Marie Reinsdorf
“We envision a future where every tree has a use at the end of its life – a level of use that honors its existence.” – vision statement from the Virginia Urban Wood Group.
In Fairfax County, we cut down way too many trees. Let’s leave that issue aside as it’s worthy of an essay in itself and look instead at the growing movement for urban wood use as part of local economies.
Sawing fallen and felled trees into lumber for local projects can be an important way to use a neglected resource.
An “urban wood utilization program” requires local champions, enthusiasm from elected leaders, and a technical assistance and encouragement program. If there is no nearby sawmill, portable sawmills will do. You need a place to dry and store the wood and an economy in one or more forms with skilled people to make furniture, outdoor benches/fixtures, birdhouses, baseball bats, bowls, or other items. You need a system.
In 2017, The Virginia Department of Forestry (DoF) started the Virginia Urban Wood Group with its partners to encourage and help localities across the commonwealth develop programs for reusing urban wood.
I had a chance to speak with Joe Lehnen, who has served as the DoF’s Urban Wood Program coordinator since the position was created in 2016 with funding from a U.S. Forest Service grant. I was interested in learning about Virginia localities that are developing urban wood economies.
In Harrisonburg, the sad loss of ash trees from the emerald ash borer started that city’s urban wood initiative.
Lehnen told Harrisonburg TV station WHSV: “Harrisonburg is very innovative, very progressive. They have probably one of the best wood programs in the state.”
Jeremy Harold, superintendent of parks for Harrisonburg, said it was important to the city to make better use of trees that had to come down. “The responsible thing to do is use this wood rather than chunking it up into firewood or throwing it into a landfill,” he said.
The Harrisonburg Department of Public Works makes dead or hazardous dying tees available for purchase through the city’s public surplus website. Two businesses integrate ash from a local park into interior design products. The Magpie Diner, for example, has 18 dining tables made from ash by Rocktown Urban Wood.
Rocktown Urban Wood expresses its mission statement plainly: “Honestly, we’re a creative bunch who enjoy making quality pieces that bring joy and function to your life.”
Other localities I learned about:
- Encouraged by a recent zero-waste commitment, the Fredericksburg, Va., Public Works Department has begun repurposing logs from larger trees for local woodworkers.
- In Roanoke, Va., trees are donated to a local sawmiller/woodworker. In exchange, he makes items like signs and conference tables for the community.
- Woodstock, Va., has teamed with the Virginia Urban Wood Group to work with local partners to find creative uses for wood.
- In Washington D.C., the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and schools work together to repurpose street trees that have to be removed.
After the trees are milled, the lumber is crafted into outdoor benches and stools (and wood chips), which D.C. schools can receive at no cost. This program is supported by Casey Trees, which offered space at Casey Tree Farm to mill and store lumber.
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| A bench at a Washington, D.C., school made from reclaimed wood. [DDOT] |
“To date, they have milled lumber from red oak, ginkgo, bald cypress, tulip poplar, elm, maple, and ash trees,” states a description of the program by the Chesapeake Tree Canopy Network.
The program is evolving. In 2019, a charter school created 60 birdhouse kits with the lumber, designed to attract native birds like chickadees and house wrens. The kits were then taken to an Arbor Day festival where teachers from the charter school, IDEA’s Academy of Construction and Design, had fun helping families build birdhouses.
DDOT’s urban forestry program is now working with another academy to craft baseball bats from local ash trees.
I mentioned D.C.’s program to Joe Lehnen and he said, “Let me tell you a little story: those foresters are so enthusiastic, once when they had no place to store lumber from a job, they brought the lumber back to the office to dry under their desks.”
Schools are a fantastic choice for a wood reuse program, indeed.
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| The D.C. urban wood program turns felled trees into lumber. [DDOT] |
On a national scale, urban wood utilization caught the attention of a group of Yale School of Management students who have launched a startup called Cambium Carbon.
Cambium Carbon is working with the Arbor Day Foundation on a project funded by the Nature Conservancy to create Reforestation Hubs in four cities: New York, Pittsburgh, Denver, and Eugene, Ore.
“In their simplest form, reforestation hubs are public-private partnerships that save cities money and generate revenue to plant and maintain more trees by diverting downed urban trees from landfills,” Cambium Carbon states on its website.
“Instead of going to waste, downed trees are sorted and turned into their highest and best use like furniture, cross-laminated timber, lumber, flooring, compost, or mulch,” the company explains. This “generates revenue to plant and maintain more trees, building a vibrant circular economy and allowing cities to better combat climate change. In the process, reforestation hubs also [create] jobs in green infrastructure through employing people at mills, nurseries, and new planting initiatives.”
Urban wood champions are chipping away at this vision, but with slow progress. Building a reforestation hub requires immense collaboration, and urban wood is a complex raw material to build consistent supply chains around.
I look forward to following this ambitious project and seeing the form it takes in each of the four cities.
Another type of important wood reclamation is the reuse of wood from old buildings. The Baltimore Wood Project has a pilot program that marries this concept with job development. It’s a program that can be replicated in other cities.
I find Virginia’s Urban Wood Group inspiring and encouraging. I hope we will have a viable urban wood program in Fairfax County one day. Here’s to fewer trees being taken down. Here’s to putting the fallen trees to their “highest and best use.”
To learn more, review the Virginia Urban Wood Group’s newsletter, where you can join their email list.
Marie Reinsdorf writes about local issues and can be reached at [email protected].
What is so wrong about "chucking" unusable wood into firewood? Burning wood is carbon footprint neutral. Please explain your thought process. Additionally, urban logs (especially from a yard) are not always suitable for lumber as they often have metal imbedded in them for one reason or another (cloths lines, hammocks, old tree houses, etc.).
Glad you asked. This discussion is much bigger than this author's enthusiasm. You may enjoy reading a booklet I just now found,
https://urbansalvagedwoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/UrbanWoodBooklet.pdf
which touches on the subject of embedded objects.
Firewood is one use, yes. I'm not sure about the carbon neutral aspect of that so won't address it.
What about the old wood at the Government Center?
Heh…heh…heh…heh….you said "wood".
– Beavis and Butthead
@Anon 3/9 9:40
Burning wood is terrible for air quality.
American Lung Association https://www.lung.org/clean-air/at-home/indoor-air-pollutants/residential-wood-burning
EPA https://www.epa.gov/burnwise/wood-smoke-and-your-health
And you better be sure that it's not treated wood that you're burning.
EPA https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/chromated-arsenicals-cca
Carl – Not true! Look it up – do some research. Burning wood is carbon neutral and not hazardous to the environment. Anyone who knows about burning wood (dry seasoned wood) doesn't burn "treated" wood.
I've found that 99% of the time someone says "do some research" without providing any sources, that person is full of crap. This is no exception. From Scientific American (the first Google search result):
"Wood smoke is also bad for the outdoors environment, contributing to smog, acid rain and other problems"
The act of burning wood is by very definition not carbon neutral, you are turning wood into carbon particulates among other byproducts. Burning wood is only considered carbon neutral in that the carbon released can be absorbed by a tree replacing the one burnt. Are you planting a tree for the logs you burn? The subject of carbon neutrality of burning biomass is pretty hotly debated, so maybe you should do some research too?
Respectfully the burden of proof is on you. I cited the ALA and EPA.
You promoted burning old clotheslines and play sets. These are often made with treated wood. An uneducated person should be careful about burning their scrap.
Anon: It's a bad thing!
Carl: Research says otherwise
Anon: You are wrong, Carl! Look at research.
OK guys – here you go. Guess I'm not so full of crap now am I? Enjoy the read.
Burning wood is considered carbon-neutral because it does not increase the amount of carbon dioxide (a regularly occurring molecule but also a greenhouse gas) cycling through the atmosphere. Carbon is continually cycling through all living plants and animals. Tree growth and wood decomposition represent a short-term carbon cycle, where growing trees convert carbon dioxide to woody biomass and decomposing trees release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Whether trees naturally decompose or burn, carbon dioxide is emitted back into the atmosphere, replacing what was just taken out. As long as global tree biomass production is at least as fast as wood is burned and it decomposes, the carbon cycle remains in balance; there is no net increase of carbon in the atmosphere. When fossil fuels are burned, carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere; most of it cannot be absorbed into the carbon cycle. Because fossil fuels are currently used for harvesting, transporting, and processing woody biomass, there is a small net increase in atmospheric carbon. This amount could be reduced if biofuels were used.
Here's more:
Wood burning is helping control carbon emissions. The U.S. could be the next country to take advantage. A federal spending bill that passed the House of Representatives earlier this year directed the Environmental Protection Agency to establish policies “that reflect the carbon neutrality of biomass” and to “encourage private investment throughout the forest biomass supply chain,” paving the way for a boom in American wood burning.
And more – When oil, gas, and coal are burned, the carbon they contain is oxidized to carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas. In effect, the combustion of fossil fuels releases ancient carbon (carbon that has been buried within the earth for thousands of years), thereby increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2). In comparison, wood combustion can be considered carbon neutral because trees absorb CO2 as they grow. This process is called carbon sequestration. Approximately one ton of carbon is sequestered for each cubic meter of wood. When trees mature, die, fall in the forest and decompose, the same amount of carbon is emitted as would be released if they were burned for heat. This cycle can be repeated forever without increasing atmospheric carbon. A healthy forest is not a museum, but a living community of plants and animals. When trees are used for energy, a part of the forests carbon "bank" is diverted from the natural decay and forest cycle into our homes to heat them.
When we heat with wood, we are simply tapping into the natural carbon cycle in which CO2 flows from the atmosphere to the forest and back. The key to ecologically sound and sustainable wood energy use is to ensure that the forest remains healthy, maintains a stable level of variously aged trees and provides a good habitat for a diversity of other species, both plants and animals. Ensuring there is a healthy fuelwood market is key to a sustainable forestry plan. Landowners have more incentive to remove low value trees and manage their forests sustainably knowing there is a market for this low value material.
The combustion of wood produces small particles that are called PM2.5. Those particles are 30 times smaller than a human hair. They can aggravate certain lung and heart diseases and have inked with health problems such as asthma. Sources of PM2.5 include combustion under various forms, such as the one used for cars and trucks, wood heating, as well are other industrial processes. While it is true that old technology like open fireplaces and simple heaters could not burn the wood completely, the new generation of wood-burning appliances are designed to burn particles. They produce almost no visible smoke. The wood-heating industry has evolved. The vast majority of appliances sold on the market now meet the particles emissions limits set by the US Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Canadian standard CSA B415.1-10. Wood, when burned in an appliance that has been tested to the EPA or CSA B415.1-10 standards, emits up to 80% less particles. It is a clean, renewable energy source. Furthermore, the reduction in fuelwood consumption reaches up to 30% when advanced wood combustion systems are used. This is because certified wood stoves and fireplaces are 60% to 80% efficient, compared with 40% to 60% for conventional units. As for appliances burning wood pellets, they have amongst the lowest particulate emissions of all solid-fuel burning appliances. They are manufactured from waste products and other renewable resources right here in North America. They represent a huge source of heating fuel from material that would otherwise be sent to landfills.
“ As long as global tree biomass production is at least as fast as wood is burned and it decomposes, the carbon cycle remains in balance; there is no net increase of carbon in the atmosphere” welp, it’s not so I guess I can stop reading.
Last word – I win!!