Is Wood Recyclable?

So many things can be made from wood. Wood is recyclable, right? Although some curbside recycling programs don’t yet accept wood, by not recycling wood, we are depleting an extremely important natural resource.
The term “recycling” usually conjures up thoughts of aluminum, plastic, glass, and paper. A recyclable commodity that may get overlooked is wood. Wood recycling, consisting both of raw wood and used wood products, as well as paper, and has become more of a focus in the past decade. We don’t normally think of recycling a natural, renewable resource, but considering the staggering statistics, it is more than necessary.

So many useful products can be made from previously used paper and wood. Paper, building materials, pallets, furniture, mulch and wood chips all can all be made from recycled wood. This not only saves money, but keeps more trees from being cut down to make these wood products. The benefits of wood recycling definitely far outweigh the drawbacks.  

Some staggering statistics regarding wood recycling are as follows:

• Every day American businesses generate enough paper to circle the Earth 20 times.
• Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees.
• Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.
• The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years.
• Only 27% of the newspapers produced in America are recycled.

Keeping in mind that the things we recycle....or don't recycle today impacts our future in so many ways should remind us to recycle anything we can to give to the next generation.

For more information on recycling, or to get a quote on commercial wood recycling, visit us at www.wasteawaygroup.com.

harryapplin.com 
recycle.net
woodrecyclers.org