What do you do with your sawdust?

[3thumbs]

I can make a bushel of sawdust in a relative hurry with the planer. When I empty the DC I always think that someone would want this clean sawdust. It's a shame to send it to the landfill. What do you guys do with yours?

[pelligrini]

I give most of my planer chips to my wife for her compost and garden. I do end up having the same conversation about pressure treated wood every darn time though.

There's some more discussion in this thread: http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=39821

[JR]

We're encouraged to put ours in the green-waste recycling bin.

JR

[LarryG]

Sawdust disposal can be a real headache, fershure. For me it got so bad that five months ago I threw up my hands and packed up all my tools and put them in a mini-warehouse. Sawdust disposal problem solved.

Seriously, I was dumping mine on the brush pile, to be burned. When I get my new shop built and start making sawdust again, I'm going to look for a less wasteful and more environmentally-friendly solution.

[crokett]

Once I start making sawdust again I will just dump it in the woods behind my house. What is wrong with just letting it rot? I was actually thinking about plumbing the DC so that the exhaust blew it all out the back of the shop into the woods.

[cabinetman]

I have stables that buy sawdust and wood chips. I have to bag it, but it's a financial return for a waste product. Some species are toxic to horses, such as Red Maple, Black Walnut, Chestnut, Cherry, and others, and have to be kept separate.
.

[dbhost]

No real agricultural use for it around me, too many of my neighbors making their own...

Makes good campfire starters when loosely packed in small boxes and lit...

Seriously though, I generally burn mine off in the smoker as a means of getting the smoker started. But when it comes to the bag after bag after bag that the planer and lathe make.

Just as a reminder, I work mostly with Oak, and pine, so the excess stuff is thrown in the back of my truck along with waste brush and taken to a friends property where he composts in rather large scale... For him it's a waste product doing some good...For me it's 4 or 5 55 gallon contractor bags full of sawdust and shavings out of my shop...

[dkerfoot]

According to LOML, I track it through the house...

[Uncle Cracker]

I save my cedar, camphor and sandalwood shavings for their aromatic qualities. My neighbor's wife makes sachets and potpourri from it. Nice. Some types that are an irritant to my allergies are tightly bagged and put on the green waste truck. The rest I usually put in the neighborhood composter.

[rnelson0]

Compost heap here. Definitely does not go in the landfill as a general practice, though some makes it in through the dustpan or falling in the trash can. I throw the grass clippings in the compost heap as well, it all pushes down pretty quickly.

[Ed62]

It usually goes in the compost pile. This time of year, it's mostly green stuff going in, so that helps with composting.

Ed

[LCHIEN]

my BIL was very excited to take mine for the compost heap he has going. I told him it had a lot of cedar and other weird woods and he was fine with that.

When I was working with Boy scouts but before I was really active in WW, the scoutmaster was enamoured of taking sawdust in 5 gal buckets, soaking it with diesel fuel and using it for campfire starter.

[Richard in Smithville]

I take some to my mothers place. She mixes some in her garden and the rest gets used by her boyfriend when he works on old cars to soak up fluids. I also make some fire startes from shavings covered with melted wax for camping.


When I was "touring" yesterday I saw a guy selling bags of shavings for $2.50/bag on the side of the road.