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Recycling treated lumber?

Started by rwarn17588, October 31, 2009, 05:54:13 PM

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rwarn17588

A question for Recyclemichael or anyone else who knows ...

What to do with scraps of treated lumber? I know the stuff isn't exactly good to have around, nor is it good to put in the landfill. What should I do with it?

RecycleMichael

I assume you are replaced some wood on an outdoor deck and have some Chromate Copper Arsenate (CCA) treated wood.

First of all, it is still legal to put into a landfill in Oklahoma. It can leachate the chemicals and could possibly lead to a leak that could reach groundwater, so an alternative to landfilling would be preferred. 

It represents about 6% of all construction and demolition debris wood. In those amounts, it is often recycled with other wood C&D waste in states that have such facilities. There are no viable wood recyclers in Oklahoma who would want it to my knowledge.

Is there any opportunity to reuse? Could you make landscape borders, playground furniture, planter boxes, birdhouses, a tree house or a trellis?  Could you make tent or plant stakes, parking stops, deer stands or even use for repairs?

Besides those ideas, I got nothing.
Power is nothing till you use it.

rwarn17588

They're lumber scraps left over from a pergola job I did on my back deck about four years ago. The pieces aren't really long or large enough to do much with, and was wondering whether there was some sort of alternative.

GG

Quote from: RecycleMichael on October 31, 2009, 08:58:50 PM
I assume you are replaced some wood on an outdoor deck and have some Chromate Copper Arsenate (CCA) treated wood.

First of all, it is still legal to put into a landfill in Oklahoma. It can leachate the chemicals and could possibly lead to a leak that could reach groundwater, so an alternative to landfilling would be preferred. 

It represents about 6% of all construction and demolition debris wood. In those amounts, it is often recycled with other wood C&D waste in states that have such facilities. There are no viable wood recyclers in Oklahoma who would want it to my knowledge.

Is there any opportunity to reuse? Could you make landscape borders, playground furniture, planter boxes, birdhouses, a tree house or a trellis?  Could you make tent or plant stakes, parking stops, deer stands or even use for repairs?

Besides those ideas, I got nothing.

You are saying if you have built a deck or edged a garden and had a 6 inch piece of treated lumber left over, there is no legal way to dispose of the left over treated lumber?   
Trust but verify

RecycleMichael

No. I said it was still legal to put it in a landfill.
Power is nothing till you use it.

MDepr2007

Quote from: rwarn17588 on October 31, 2009, 10:33:31 PM
They're lumber scraps left over from a pergola job I did on my back deck about four years ago. The pieces aren't really long or large enough to do much with, and was wondering whether there was some sort of alternative.

4 years ago! Did the "hording article" get to you ?

rwarn17588

Quote from: MDepr2007 on November 01, 2009, 06:40:57 AM
4 years ago! Did the "hording article" get to you ?

No, we don't have much room to hoard anything. We're now finishing a long-delayed Route 66 project. There aren't many treated pieces, but I wasn't sure what to do with them.

We have other scraps of lumber from other projects we've used for repairs, but we're going to burn most of them in our wood stove -- except the treated stuff, of course.