Ideas to dispose of land clearing waste

[Tinhack]

Have you talked with them about a controlled burn? They start and watch over it.

The VFD does that here. They did it for me, years back, for a small donation to the department. I called them because I had some huge piles of trees and brush. They came out with a fire truck and stayed for about three hours.

I'm in the county and they have "no burn" rules during dry spells but controlled burns are ok. If I'm burning brush, I call them to let them know in case someone reports smoke. I've been doing that way since I lived here--1999.

 

[Shawn T. W.]

We don't call anyone ...

I sometimes burn early in the morning, not to hide it, but I'm awake, and the wind is cut down ... 3-4 am when the nearest neighbors 1/4 mile away are sleeping anyways ...

A foggy day usually has high moisture content on the ground, and would hide the smoke and flames from any distance ...

 

[paulsharvey]

We don't call anyone ...

I sometimes burn early in the morning, not to hide it, but I'm awake, and the wind is cut down ... 3-4 am when the nearest neighbors 1/4 mile away are sleeping anyways ...

A foggy day usually has high moisture content on the ground, and would hide the smoke and flames from any distance ...

Man, you mix fog and smoke, and visibly goes to Zero. We had a peat bog fire burning about 11 years ago, and it burned underground for about 5 months. On foggy mornings it was a guessing game that road was shut down that morning based on wind. One time, it was so bad I pulled over, and from the White line, I couldn't see the yellow line, 12 ft away...

 

[Yander]

If you have any local campgrounds nearby, they might take some of it for campers to burn. It doesn't need to be a hardwood for those purposes.

 

[Mulemamma]

I've been clearing some land for awhile. As a result I've accumulated a lot of organic waste. Hiring someone to haul it off is going to be too expensive. What I can burn, no larger than 5" diameter, I have been. What I need to figure out is what to do with the rest of it. As you can see in the attached images I have a lot of waste logs which I don't think are worth trying to process for firewood. Besides, I've got a ton of good wood to process and just don't have room for this other stuff. I also have piles of roots, grass, small rocks, twigs, etc that also need to go. I was thinking of renting a 12" chipper to handle a lot of the wood but if anyone has better ideas I am open.

Advertise around “free firewood-bring chainsaw.”

 

[Todd727]

Can you get a permit for a burn? There has to be an avenue for that with developers clearing land. It may involve digging a burn pit and renting a smoke curtain (forced air) machine.

 

[BlueKnife]

We can burn but nothing larger than 5" radius. A lot of those logs are bigger then that. As for the other materials there is a lot of dirt mixed in and it tends not to burn.

5" radius? You sure you didn't mean diameter? I'm not seeing a whole lot of over 10" diameter logs in those piles. A chipper is going to be a nightmare to use with that stuff, now that it's stacked up and short like that. I owned and ran a tree service for 20 years and I occasionally had folks who would want me to come chip brush (I had a 15" chipper) and if they had it piled ahead of time the price doubled. So much more work to rip the pile back apart than if it was spread out. I would burn everything you can. If the limit really is 5" radius, not diameter, you should be able to burn the vast majority of it. If it's 5" diameter, I'd pile it up and let it rot, but if it has to be gotten rid of, somebody with a dump truck and skid steer with a grapple would be able to do it most efficiently. Who checks the size of the wood being burned?

 

[BlueKnife]

Can you get a permit for a burn? There has to be an avenue for that with developers clearing land. It may involve digging a burn pit and renting a smoke curtain (forced air) machine.

It probably involves a tub grinder, something that would work great, but would be immense overkill for the OP.

 

[BlueKnife]

I got into it with a Customer…you know, one of those self proclaimed “biologist” or “environmentalist” type of customer?

I suggested they burn their wood debris. They were offended at the suggestion and said it would pollute the atmosphere. Studies show that leaving logs in piles to rot slow releases methane gas, which also pollutes the atmosphere.

Plus it looks like chit while it’s sitting there rotting.

Man they wouldn't like it where I live. Loggers are required to burn slash piles here, we have wildfires every summer, controlled burns are a regular occurrence in the spring and fall and grain fields, hay fields and often lawns are burned every year. I burn my "lawn" (calling it a lawn is quite generous) in the spring.

 

[charlessenf]

We can burn but nothing larger than 5" radius. A lot of those logs are bigger then that. As for the other materials there is a lot of dirt mixed in and it tends not to burn.

Well, gather all ye little logs together, leaving larger logs for later. Move the dirt contaminated material about to dry it out, release the dirt. Mix little logs and dried/aerated 'other material' into manageable piles to burn.

Be prepared to move the remains about after the pile is 'out' to finish off the charcoal and miscellaneous loose material together for a second 'burn' using 'fresh' little logs and dried/aerated 'other material' until all gone but the larger logs suitable for (Craigslist sales of) firewood perhaps?