The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1916-06-27
THIRTY SIX MILLION CORDS
OF WOOD WASTE ANNUALLY

/ Washington, June 27,-There are
more than $4,000 sawm,lls in the
United States, and their output of
waste in the form of sawdust, shay.
| ings, slabs and other wood refuse is
estimated as SO million cords per year.
This is equal to over 4 II billion Gu
! bic feet of waste, which is the capacity
of bin one-half mile high with a
base covering forty acre lot. Or,
considering each cord to contain
eighty feet of solid wood with all the
cracks and air spaces taken out, these
S6 million cords would make block
of wood more than a quarter of a mile
on each edge.
Perhaps one half of this so-called
waste product is not strictly speaking
wasted, but serves a useful purpose as
fuel under the boilers. Much of the
remaining Is million cords not only
serves no useful purpose, but in most
cases is a source of inconvenience and
danger, and costs the mill time and
money.
Sawmill waste is disposed of in var
ious ways. Some goes to the local
fuel market, some to pulp mills or to
wood distillation plants. Shavings and
hog cuttings, as we'll as other mill
waste, are sometimes used to fill low
places in the yard. However the most
common method of getting rid of
waste is by burning either in a fire
pit having an open fire which some
times has a protecting wall on the
side towards the mill, or in burner
enclosed on all sides and having a
spark -arresting screen at the top and
a fire crate near the bottom. In both
cases some kind of a conveyor is nee
essary to bear the waste from the mill
to the fire. This is usually sort of
trough with a metal bottom, along
which a slowly moving chain or cable,
equipped with cleats or buckets, car
ries the waste to the fire.
A closed burner and conveyor costs
about $4,000 for a mill of hundred
thousand feet daily capacity. Forty
per cent of the larger mills, cutting
more than $4,000 board feet daily, are
equipped with closed burners. Forty
five per cent have fire pits. The re
mainder have neither and dispose of
their waste in some other way.
1t is estimated that for a mill of
one hundred thousand feet capacity
the cost of conveying the waste from
the machine where it Is made and de
stroying it in closed burner is AZ
cents per cord, or $10.05 per day
Burners seldom bring in any revenue,
although in a few cases ashes are
sold for fertilizer, and in a number
of others the burner furnishes hot feed
water for the boilers.
Both burners and fire pits add to
the insurance rates on lumber, and in
case of the pit on the mill itself. In
order to reduce the fire hazard to zero,
in the case of the burners, it is neces-
sary to keep all lumber piles at least
one hundred and fifty feet away from
the burner. The matter is much worse
in the case of pits, especially the open
ones, which must be kept three hun
dred feet away from the mill and five
hundred feet away from any lumber
piles. When nearer than these dis
tances from the mill and yard respect
lively, the insurance rates mount up
rapidly with closer proximity until
they become practically prohibitive
when the fire pit is nearer than one
hundred feet.
No well managed mill would pro
duce waste if it could be avoided.
This, however is not possible, so the
next best thing is to seek out some
method of utilization of the waste so
it will pay for its disposition. The for
est service is working on this prob
lem, but has not yet found salts
factory solution.