CANADIAN WOOD RECYCLING INDUSTRY NEWS

COMPOST COUNCIL OF CANADA JOINS THE CANADIAN WOOD WASTE RECYCLING BUSINESS GROUP.

TO LEAD IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND EXPANSION OF CREATING MORE REUSE MARKETS FOR RECYCLED WOOD AND WOOD BIOCHAR AS A NATURAL COMPOST MATERIAL

ABOUT

The Compost Council of Canada is a national non-profit, member-driven organization with a charter to advocate and advance organics residuals recycling. It serves as the central resource and network for the compost industry in Canada.

https://www.compost.org

Residential Composting - Can I Compost Wood?

Wood Compost 101

History of Commercial Compost

Wood and green organic composting is an ancient art, as old as seed gathering and cave painting. Clay tablets from Mesopotamia dating back 1,000 years before Moses discuss the composting process. Composting was popular with the Greeks and Romans and was common farming practice in Europe and America before the chemical revolution of the 19th century.

You can compost most types of Wood but it probably isn’t wise to do in a basic garden compost heap, it has to be reduced, downsized in a minimal 1" minus format ... thusly greater reuse in larger volumes for i.e. soil remediation applications in the Forest, Agriculture, Oil & Gas, Pipeline industries. (*Canadian Wood Waste Recycling Business Group)

Real Timber Wood

Since Wood is a natural product, real wood will decompose into natural humus – but anything bigger than twigs will take a LONG time to rot down, decompose.

Home gardens, in the meantime, it’ll probably clog up your compost heap, making it difficult to turn over and/or extract other finished compost.

If you do want to compost wood (rather than using it/burning it), it would be better to have a dedicated space for it elsewhere in your garden. In the (many) years it’ll take to rot down, it’ll serve as a playground for all sorts of beneficial insects rather than just getting in your way.

Some councils pick up Wood (such as large logs or branches) as part of their green waste collection service. Alternatively, people with wood burning stoves will love to get their hands on your wood (ahem) – offer it on a local noticeboard (either offline or online) and someone will probably be able to collect it within a few days.

Hardboard, plywood, particle board and MDF Wood by-products

Fibreboards are almost definitely a composting no-no.

Hardboard is sometimes just compressed Wood fibres – that can be composted – but it sometimes includes resin as a binding agent. As it is hard to tell which is which, it’s probably best to leave it out.

Plywood, particle board and MDF always use synthetic binding agents so dust from those should definitely not be added to a compost heap.

How to Compost Wood Chips/Processed Wood waste materials Fast

If you find yourself with a lot of Wood chips to get rid of, you can always compost them.

Composting Wood chips allows you to turn excess Wood from your property into a rich, nutritious, organic growing medium for your gardens.

Why throw all of that perfectly good money away, rather than having them hauled off or dumping them into the woods?!

If you have a high quality compost accelerator like Urea on hand (or intend to obtain some), which will help to improve the decomposition rate of your Wood chips, you will work through your pile, windrow far more quickly. This is not a must-have, but it can save your back a bit of labor.

In average conditions, Wood chips can take several years to fully decompose.

This can greatly vary depending on how the compost pile is built and maintained, what is in the compost pile, what time of year the compost pile is started, what type of Wood is used, and how large the chips are.

As you can see, there are many variables that will affect the time that it takes to decompose your Wood chips.

By ensuring that you provide optimum conditions for decomposition (small chips, wood species that aren’t rot resistant, balancing nitrogen & carbon, etc), and by giving fungi a hospitable place to call home, your wood chips will compost much more quickly.

What Size Wood Chips Decompose the Fastest?

If you want your wood chips to decompose as quick as possible, make sure that the chips are as small as you can get them.

Smaller Wood chips from tiny branches and overgrown brush around the property will decompose much faster.

However, very large Wood chips that come from your local power company could be over 8 inches in length and take far longer.

Instead of composting the largest chunks of Wood, try using them for kindling your fireplace or in a bonfire.

Balancing Nitrogen and Carbon (Greens and Browns) for the Fastest Wood Chip Compost

If you want to learn how to compost Wood chips fast, you must learn how to balance the greens and browns in a compost pile.

The browns are carbon-rich organic materials, such as Wood, brown leaves, paper, cardboard, hay, straw, and more. The greens are nitrogen-rich materials, such as green foliage, urine, grass clippings, and manure.

If your compost pile is composed of nothing but Wood chips, it will break down very slowly.

To speed up the process, add lots of green material to the compost pile to “heat things up.”

The hotter a compost pile gets, the more quickly the items within will break down.

If you plan to mow your yard, or if you need to clean out the chicken coop or rabbit hutches, it would be an excellent idea to add the clippings and manure to the Wood chips in a compost pile.

Make sure that everything is well mixed and evenly dispersed for the best results while composting.

When to Start a Wood Chip Compost Pile & How to Speed Up Decomposition

Conditions favorable for decomposition are always warm and wet; this includes your Wood pile.

You can begin building your Wood chip pile year round, but for the fastest results, arrange to have chips delivered during the late winter or early spring; this will give you 3 to 8 months of warmer weather for the chips to break down.

Build your mound of fresh chips, and keep it moistened. Do not allow it to dry out, or decomposition will slow. Water it just like you would the garden!

If you didn’t balance the pile with “greens”, it is a good idea to apply the Urea we mentioned at the beginning of this post around once per month. You may need to apply it heavily during the first month or two, perhaps a handful or two.

Apply the urea in a flat area at the top, helping to prevent it from washing down the sides of the pile when it is watered.

Turn your Wood chips as often as possible (every two weeks) to help them decompose quickly and more uniformly.

Do Some Woods Take Longer to Compost Than Others?

If there are rot resistant Woods in the pile of mulch, try to pick them out; they will not deteriorate quickly, and some such as Cedar may actually thwart the process by deterring beneficial insects that will compost the Wood.

These Woods are known to be resistant to rot, and may frequently be found in chips that come from local lumber yards or saw mills:

Cedar

Black Locust

Osage Orange

Bald Cypress

Redwood

Oak

If any of these are found in your pile of chips, then you should be aware that these Woods will take longer to break down.

Be sure to place the decomposing Woodpile in a section of your yard that you won’t mind setting aside for a while.

Trivia - Pallets

Most pallets are made from untreated wood (See below) and can therefore be home composted.

The allotment composter and those with large gardens are likely to use whole pallets to make compost bins and those that are broken could either be be “chipped for home composting if the equipment was available or taken to the recycling centre.  

What’s In Commercial Compost

Getting the Best Compost

The problem with commercial Wood compost is not knowing what it contains. General guidelines for buying compost only go so far. Studying labels will reveal only so much and can lead one to believe the product you’re buying is safer than it is. And the rigorous testing required to make sure your purchased compost doesn’t contain too much ammonia or soluble salt and that it has the right carbon/nitrogen balance is beyond most casual gardeners. But you can easily check your compost to see if it is finished, in other words, stable and ready to use. Make sure that it has no readily identifiable components such as leaves, grasses or wood chips. Put a handful in a plastic bag, seal the bag and leave it for 24 hours. If it smells bad when you reopen it, the compost probably isn’t finished. The same pH test kit that works for testing your garden soil will also reveal the pH of your compost.

For all questions in relation to Composting, please contact:

Compost Council of Canada

Contact: Susan Antler, Executive Director.

[email protected] / Tel: (416) 535-0240

www.compost.org

JOIN US IN BUILDING CANADA’S WOOD RECYCLING INDUSTRY

Secure a countrywide membership, launch and or grow your Wood recycling business across CANADA.

CANADIAN WOOD WASTE RECYCLING BUSINESS GROUP.

We will help you to build and or expand your WOOD recycling business activities. 

www.cdnwoodwasterecycling.ca