Whether you operate a furniture making operation, a toy manufacturing business, or even a sawmill, you will encounter an issue that is similar to all wood working plants: the question of wood dust waste and what to do with it? Dust is inevitable, of course, because shaping pieces of wood will result in fine granules that you can’t have floating around the shop. Most wood working plants have collection facilities that get the wood dust out of the way, but what do you do once those facilities are full? After all, disposing of this dust can prove to be quite expensive. In this article, we will take a look at some ways in which dust from wood working plants may be put to use instead of disposing of it.

As fuel

Although only present in particle form, the dust that comes off of your wood during the manufacture of products is still wood, and that means it can be used as a good energy source. In fact, there are several systems on the market which not only convert wood dust into energy for heating and so on, but will also monitor the levels of wood dust in a central location and begin the conversion process at certain levels.

As it is a by product, you won’t be able to use wood dust as the primary driver of your heating systems, but collecting and burning it at the right levels will save you some energy costs.

Bedding for livestock

Another good use of wood dust is as ground cover for various shelters used by livestock. Wood dust is similar to sawdust in that it will absorb a lot of waste and make it easier to clean out of the animal’s shelter; in fact, because it is quite fine it may act somewhat like clumping cat litter and make stalls and barns that much easier to clean out. It can be used effectively as bedding and ground cover for sheep, goats, rabbits, horses, chickens, pigs, and other domesticated animals.

So before you throw that wood dust away, try to consider some alternatives. The usefulness of our suggestions will, of course, depend on the size of your operations, but if you do have a medium to large size wood working plant then it is well worth your while to cut down on expensive disposal fees.