Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 37(1): January 2011 Table 1. Employment statistics. Characteristics Proportion of total Average number of 7.5 employees per yard Estimated total number of 440 employees all yards % of businesses with own 78.5% field crews Raw material sourcing and supply Large yard 33% Small yard 67% 4.8 582 31% Total - - 1,082 - Table 2. Equipment ownership among wood disposal yards (according to yard size). Equipment Aerial lift Large 0% Backhoe Band mill Bulldozer Chainsaws Chip van Chipper with chip box Circular mill Coloring unit Denailer Edger Excavator Fork lift Forwarder processor Hand chipper Horizontal grinder Kiln/air-dry area Loader Log splitter Portable mill PTO chipper Pup-dump Screener Skidder Slabsaw Stump grinder Stump grinder Truck scales Truck with dump bed Tub grinder Whole tree chipper Wood working equipment 14.3% 7.1% 100% 35.7% 42.9% 42.9% 7.1% 0% 0% 7.1% 7.1% 50% 0% 64.3% 7.1% 7.1% 14.3% 78.6% 7.1% 14.3% 14.3% 0% 11.8% 7.1% 57.1% 7.1% 7.1% 78.6% 21.4% 64.3% 14.3% Small 3.4% 10.3% 10.3% 6.9% 48.3% 6.9% 6.9% 3.4% 3.4% 3.4% 3.4% 0% 24.1% 3.4% 20.7% 3.4% 3.4% 13.8% 31% 10.3% 3.4% 0% 3.4% 0% 0% 17.2% 0% 0% 48.3% 0% 0% 27.6% Table 3. Average tipping fee charged by wood residue facili- ties in $/m3 charging a tipping fee for any material. Logs Stumps Mean $10.70 $14.27 Min $7.65 $9.94 Max $13.76 $19.11 $7.65 $9.94 Brush and branches Pallets and scrap wood $8.41 $9.56 $7.65 $11.47 Table 4. Average price paid by wood waste yards for wood supply in $/m3 . In the study, 17.1% of businesses reported buying these materials. Average paid Average paid Average paid for logs Mean Min Max $117.24 $105.94 $128.55 for sawdust $10.59 $5.30 $31.78 $19.42 $31.78 for shredded bark $25.43 . In the study, 12.2% of businesses were reported Tree removal companies were the most common source of wood residues, with approximately two-thirds of the busi- nesses surveyed (65.1%) handled these types of materials. The second most common wood source was from land clear- ing operations (used by 44.2% of respondents), followed by pallets and crates (16.3%), and lastly mill residues (11.6%). A limited number of yards (12.2%) reported charging a tipping fee to accept wood residues (Table 3). Companies charging tip- ping fees generally had procedures for screening material arriving at their yards and were generally large, well-established facilities. The tipping fees were typically based on the level of difficulty in processing the material and the potential for converting the residue into useful, salable products. Raw materials that are very difficult to process, with minimal potential for salable products (such as stumps), were generally charged the highest fees ($14.27/m3 average), and material (such as brush and branches) that are easy to move around and process were charged the lowest fees ($8.41/m3 ) due to the amount Logs were charged a medium fee ($10.70/m3 of energy needed for their conversion into other materials. Few residue yards (17.1%) reported buying raw material for their processing facilities (Table 4). For instance, the yards will- ing to pay for raw material (such as logs, sawdust, or shredded bark) generally relied more on tree removals for their supplies and also provided financial incentives to other companies to provide these select materials. Additionally, 17% of those surveyed re- ported buying and using sawmill residues as part of their supply. The total volume of wood material entering processing fa- cilities was 6,659 thousand m3 (Table 5). When viewing wood sources by volume, land clearing was found to be the larg- est supplier, accounting for 60.8% (or 4,053.3 thousand m3 ) of the total wood residue volume, ) of the wood residue entering the yards. Tree removals comprised 33.4% (2,225.2 thousand m3 with sawmill residues and pallet materials representing a very small part of the total resource (5.5% and 0.2%, respectively). This result is similar to the regional pallet volume, which com- prised approximately 1% of the nation’s estimated production of 500 million wooden pallets (Forest Products Laboratory 2007). From the land clearing supply origin, most residues fell into one of two categories, logs and/or branches/brush/wood chips, with each group contributing 1,911.8 thousand m3 (or 47% of all land clearing residues). Mulch and stumps represented only a small portion (6%) of the land clearing total (Table 5). Almost half of the materials from tree removals were delivered in the form of wood chips (1,103.1 thousand m3 ). Branches and brush made up 10% of the tree removal residues; and logs rep- resented 8% of this total. This indicates a clear tendency of tree service companies to convert logs immediately into wood chips, which may be due to a lack of heavy lifting and trucking equipment. Consideration of all wood sources indicate that most logs ar- riving at processing facilities are cut into small, easy-to-handle sizes. The study results indicated that only 5% of the total volume of logs received (0.08 million green tons) arrived in “millable” condition (at least ten inches in diameter and eight feet long). A large number of wood residue processing facilities (85%) reported a change in the volume of solid wood collected dur- ing the past few years, reporting a 75% to 85% decrease in their wood supply since 2001. The bulk of the decrease occurred be- tween 2005 and 2007, when facilities observed a 50% drop in the wood supply. The downturn was generally attributed to drops ©2011 International Society of Arboriculture on ). 15
January 2011
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