What do you do with the dust and chips in your dust collector?

[George Gyulatyan]

It just seems such a waste to just dump all those wood particles. What do you do with it? Are there any places that would take it to recycle?

[Robert G Brown]

I don't generate much. I put it in our composter. Except for the 2 times working with treated wood. Treated wood is supposed to be okay now but taking no chances, I put the chips & dust from it into the trash.

[Peter Quinn]

I bring mine to a local millwork shop (where I also happen o work) with a large dust collection bin outside and dump it there. I use a preseperator with metal cans so its a pretty simple affair to load a few of them into my van and take them to dump. The millwork shop has a farmer who collects the shavings several time a week with a bucket loader and dump truck. He stores them and uses them as winter bedding for animals, and he trades it to other farmers for hay if I understood him correctly. ITs a nice way to give the wood chips a second life and keep them out of a land fill. My few cans of shavings don't look like much when dumped in a double deep garage of saw dust sitting under a 100HP cyclone tower collector, but it makes me feel better to dump them there.

[abram godshall]

either use it for compost or give it to a horse farm for bedding.... wood only, no plastic wood, no plywood, no exotics (anything the animal could react to)

[Danny Hamsley]

I dump it in the woods behind my shop to let nature take care of it. That won't work for many of you that do not have woods behind your shops and have lawns and neighbors instead.

[John TenEyck]

The chips and shavings go on the mulch pile that my wife runs through the chipper/shredder with limbs and such from our property to make mulch for our landscaping. The sawdust goes on the compost pile. Nothing goes to the curb.

[jim mills]

Can wood chips (byrd tyrds as some call them) be used as mulch without composting first?

[Mark Engel]

Can wood chips (byrd tyrds as some call them) be used as mulch without composting first?

Not a good idea. The wood chips/dust will draw nitrogen out of the soil as it breaks down, robbing that nutrient from your plants.

Better to let the chips/dust settle for 6-12 months before using for mulch.

[Charles Krieger]

I my neighborhood lawn/garden waste is recycled (composted) and it is permissible to put sawdust and wood that has not been finished into the container. I remember In the 1940's my father using sawdust moistened with a petroleum product (kerosene?) as a floor sweep. Anyone know anything about that?

[David Hostetler]

I wish I could recall if it was Wood Magazine, or Shop Notes, but the current issues, which mine arrived last night, both on the same day which is why I don't recall... anyway one of them had an article on this very subject, and while they addressed a LOT of the same uses I see covered in the forums. One not mentioned in the forums, or one I missed, was making fire starters out of them by filling up small vessels (they use cupcake cups) with sawdust / chips, and melting paraffin or even melting down old candle wax and mixing them together. If you work with only specific woods, like oak, walnut, apple, cherry etc... soak them and throw them over a good hot bed of coals in your smoker to keep the smoke going well. (throwing them in dry just makes for a flash fire)... Good stuff for sure...

I need to build a composter. Too much sawdust, too many lawn clippings and vegetable waste to not reclaim it for gardening use.

One of the article uses I saw, and one I see mentioned on forums is as a spill absorbent. While yes it CAN be reasonably effective, don't expect it to work like cat litter... You really need dust / wood flour instead of shavings and chips to be all that effective, and even at that, it is a far cry from the capacity of litter. Not bad for free though...

[Paul Canaris]

Either trash or to a local who has horses.

[Peter Aeschliman]

I've read on this forum that there are certain woods that you should avoid if using it for horses' stalls. I remember walnut being one of them, but don't quote me on that.

I think the answer really depends on what kind of wood you're cutting. I tend to do mostly solid woods, but sometimes I cut plywoods and more often yet, I cut MDF... That means the sawdust coming out of my DC has some toxic stuff in it... so obviously it won't make good compost and it would be irresponsible of me to dump it in the woods. So mine goes in the trash.

I make dump runs about once or twice per year, so I store it under cover in my utility trailer until it's time to go to the dump.

[Trent Shirley]

I have given mine to people on FreeCycle looking to use it in their garden beds. I only give it away when I have not been cutting treated wood of course.

[George Gyulatyan]

Some great ideas here. Hadn't thought of the issues with MDF and Plywood. The others should be OK after dumping the dust from MDF as it is mostly maple and mahogany, although will be doing some stuff with wenge soon, so I guess the dust from that should also go into the dumpster for known reasons.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I've got some good ideas from this.

[Jeff Monson]

90% of mine goes in the trash, my neighbor uses some in a compost bin

[Jeff Nicol]

I posted a couple years ago that I made a little system to pack the chips and dust inside of a piece of 4" PVC that I put a newspaper tube in. Then I made a plunger to pack the the chips in the tube and push them out and tape the ends. These are used to start fires in my wood stoves, one in the hose and one for the shop. If I have been turning a lot I save all the long curls for tinder/kindling also. If I get too much during the summer it goes out in the woods on the big pile and I turn it over a couple times a year and it composts down into dark rich dirt.

So if you have any of the things I use you are set, but if you live in town and can't find someone who wants it, you just have to throw it away.

Good luck,

Jeff