Britain’s growing network of community wood recycling enterprises has defied the recession to reach a key milestone. Source: Green Building Press
Social enterprises that work under the National Community Wood Recycling Partnership umbrella have earned more than £1 million ($1.55 million) in collection fees since the launch of a nationwide collection service in 2009.
In weight, more than 7000 tonnes of wood has been rescued from possible landfill.
Community wood recyclers sort every piece of wood they collect and sell reusable wood to their local community or make it into products. This reduces the need for virgin timber as well as fighting the effect of climate change because greenhouse gases are not released from burning or decomposition of wood.
Each of the country’s 27 Community Wood Recycling Enterprises is financially self-supporting and relies on the income from collections of wood waste to achieve its aims of saving resources and creating work and training for disadvantaged people.
They collect waste wood from the construction sites across the country. Community wood recycling will soon be an option for all builders throughout the country.
The service offered is unique in the industry and offers an alternative to the use of skips. By collecting all site waste timber in caged trucks the social enterprise group is able to save a portion for reuse in local communities, another portion is remanufactured in to a range of products, whilst the residue is recycled in to
wood chips via conventional routes.
