All Replies on Saw Dust and or waste

as long as it is pure/clean, put it in quart bags for someone that bbq’s. Cherry is a nice wood for adding flavor in a smoker.

I burn it in a woodburner

Open a bar and spread it on the floor. Sorry, no other ideas. I have to take mine to the local recycling center. I hope you get some better ideas.

-- Mike, an American living in Norway.

I send it to the dump.

-- Jerry

Compost is one I have heard.
I am also looking at using it as mulch.
http://lumberjocks.com/HokieMojo Of course it’s pure. It’s Cherry.
http://lumberjocks.com/stefang I drink enough to use the bar idea, But I still drag it through the house.
Thanks you guys,
Looking forward to more detailed input.

-- "The greatest pleasure in life is doing what others say you cannot do."-Walter Bagehot

I burn it in a burn pit out back. I just planed 500BF of poplar last night. I filled the DC 6 times. My DC has a 55 gal & 35 gal drum.

YanktonSD I used to burn sawdust (SD) in the stove, but I had an opps. the box I packed with SD had broke apart as it burned and the SD blew the door open on the stove and also blew a 5’ fire ball out of the door.

This is what happens when you have the right combination of air and saw dust. Mine was not as impressive as this, but still scared the crap out of me

I save most cherry and oak cutoffs of any size to use in my smoker. Even shavings go into a coffee can to use in a smoker box on my grill. The contents of the barrel on my DC go on the ground as mulch.

-- Bill, Thomasville, GA

Garden mulch, except for walnut, to keep down weeds. Apparently walnut kills plants.

-- Mother Nature talks, I try to listen

I am lucky. I have enough space to just take it to an area down the hill a ways, and dump my dust bags. All the little cut-offs, and (this is a cuss word to me)...scraps, I’ll burn in a fire pit when we have company and feel like havin some beers and talk some chit. LOL. Remember though, other than that, there is no scraps in woodworking.

-- Roger from KY. Work/Play/Travel Safe. Keep your dust collector fed. [email protected]yahoo.com

Post on craigslist. I’m sure you can find a gardener that wants it for compost or someone that wants it for animal bedding. There have been a few threads like this with other ideas though like adding paraffin for burning it more safely.

I burn sawdust in my campfire ring in the back yard-30 gallons at a time.
The cut off are kindling in my wood furnace.
..............Jim

-- Jim Jakosh.....Practical Wood Products...........Learn something new every day!! Variety is the Spice of Life!!

I don’t produce huge quantities at the moment.

Sawdust and pure-wood offcuts that I can’t use for anything else go in our yard waste bin for collection and recycling.

Plywood, glued pieces and other not-pure-wood cutoffs go in a bucket I have under my workbench, for disposal in the regular trash as and when there is space.

A couple logs that got beetle infested went in our outdoor fire pit.

I use shavings and dust in the garden – either as mulch or as brown matter for compost. Also gave a couple bags to a friend who keeps chickens.
I’ve been doing a lot of green woodworking, and the “sheavings” from drawknifing are big enough to burn in the stove and make great firestarting material.

-- Jeremy, in the Acadian forests

I tried making compost of sawdust and it composted well. Only thing is nothing would grow in it except a few weeds. As this mulch continues to decompose it consumes nitrogen so the seedlings starve for it. I used literally tons of wood chips, from felled trees, as a mulch on a slope and it worked as an effective weed killer… Just my experience… I now put my sawdust in the trash, that goes to landfill.

-- No PHD just a DD214 Lubbock Texas

Jim,
I’m still learning about compost, but here is my take: you’re right that compost made only of sawdust will be nitrogen-less and is not good for the soil. But if you mix it with high-nitrogen green matter (kitchen scraps, grass clippings, weeds) in the “right” proportions it should be good (30:1 in carbon:nitrogen, they say). The only problem, of course, is finding that right proportion without a raft of scientific equipment. Plus, the amount of planer shavings that many of us generate would require ridiculous amounts of green matter to balance it.

-- Jeremy, in the Acadian forests

Saturday mornings here in central NY we have a plant/garden guy who does a morning radio show. Last week he mentioned that Walnut trees naturally produce a “plant killer”. The tree produces the killer so Walnut seedlings won’t be taken over or overgrown by other plants. That mentioned, Wallnut SD, shavings, whatever, are probably not a good thing to compost and use in the garden.

-- Bill, central NY...no where near the "big apple"