Focused on sustainability – wood recycling

2022 is off to a great start as we stay focused on sustainability with our wood recycling

As a manufacturer of precision parts for the aerospace sector, we receive a lot of deliveries of raw materials and components. Most of these items arrive using wood for the packaging and transport.

Wood has long been a favoured material for transporting items. It provides excellent impact protection, is much safer than metal containers in low-spark environments, can be re-used much more than paper, and is far greener than oil/chlorine based plastics which are difficult to recycle.   But over time we built up a sizeable amount of wood at our facility which wasn’t going to be re-used by ourselves, so it needed to go. Problem was, we didn’t want to just throw it away. Rather, we wanted to see the wood we had go on to be re-used where possible to retain its carbon storage and recycled for a new life if possible too.

To help us meet these goals we turned to Oxford Wood Recycling in Abingdon. Oxford Wood Recycling is a charity which collects wood no longer wanted by businesses or domestic owners and looks to re-use as much as possible. The waste wood collected can either be turned into furniture or refinished for DIY projects or broken down for making panel boarding. Scaffold planks are refurbished so they can return to site. And the remainder is recycled for use in biomass energy production.

One of the great things about Oxford Wood Recycling is their determination to making a positive social impact. The charity employs 20 people and works with a network of volunteers, placements and trainees, many with disabilities, to help them develop their careers.  Working with the charity is very easy. It only takes a phone call to get them to collect the wood we had collected and the process was very quick and efficient. Oxford Wood Recycling use high-capacity caged pick-ups vehicles, which removes the need for us to order skips that take up much-needed space. In a short space of time the pile of waste wood was gone, heading to a new life. Your next DIY project might contain some of the wood they collected.

By asking Oxford Wood Recycling to collect our waste wood we have been able to stay focused on sustainability, with the added benefits of helping a charity continue to assist less-abled people develop useful career skills. We’d certainly recommend Oxford Wood Recycling to our partners and hope to see them again when our stock of waste wood piles up.

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