We are often asked by customers if we recycle our green waste. The answer to that question is absolutely yes! When we remove a tree or trim trees on your property we remove all wood and brush and bring it to our recycling yard in Laurel, MD. Once at the yard, wood is dumped in one pile while the wood chips are dumped in yet another. Any wood that can be used as firewood is separated then split and loaded in ½ chord bags. However, we do not sell firewood. The majority of the firewood that we create is used to heat our office and shop complex in Beltsville during the winter months. The remainder is donated to needy families who actually heat their homes in the winter with wood.
The remainder of the wood that is rotted, knotty or otherwise unusable for firewood, is then sheared into small pieces by our shearing machine. This machine is nothing more than a large excavator with a La Bounty Shear affixed to the arm. This shear is capable of cutting up the largest of trees into pieces that are small enough to run through our Vermeer HG6000 Horizontal Grinder. This grinder is equipped with a 750 Horsepower, turbo charged, Caterpillar engine that is capable of grinding entire trees up to 30” inches in diameter. We do not however grind trees this large as it puts a tremendous amount of stress on the grinder.
After the trees are ground, (the first grind) they are combined with the wood chips and re-ground using smaller “screens” in the grinder which produces a finer more suitable mulch product (the second grind). The second grind mulch is of the correct consistency for your home landscaping projects but is not yet ready as there is yet another step. The coloring machine. A good amount of the mulch is left natural while some is colored black, brown and even red. After coloring, the mulch is left to sit in rows to mature and is turned often so as to let the heat escape. If you were to insert your bare arm into one of the “maturing” mulch rows on the coldest winter day, you would be burned. The mulch literally produces that much heat.
There you have it and this is how we do it. Thanks for reading.
Pictures of Adirondack Tree Experts Recycling Green Waste
