Wisconsin's Dane County to start accepting wood waste at C&D plant

Joe Parisi, Dane County (Wisconsin) Executive, has announced that the county will soon begin recycling clean wood waste at the Dane County landfill. In a release by the county, Parisi notes that municipalities in the county are overwhelmed with clean wood waste due to the prevalence of the emerald ash borer, a tiny beetle that has killed millions of ash trees in North America. Due to the beetle, local private and public facilities have become overwhelmed and have stopped taking wood waste.

“This is a common sense solution, and we are uniquely able to recycle wood waste,” says Parisi. “Opening up the recycling facility to process clean wood will help local municipalities, businesses and residents in Dane County with a need no other entity is filling.”

Once the program starts in late July the county will charge $40 per ton to handle the wood waste. The county will work with current operators of its recently opened construction and demolition recycling facility and expand the partnership to include wood recycling. Quality logs will be made into urban lumber, while the rest will likely be recycled for mulch or biomass fuel.

The decision to introduce wood recycling follows the opening of the county’s construction and demolition facility this past February (To read about the C&D plant, click here). The new recycling center separates waste from construction and demolition projects and recycles it. Parisi notes the C&D plant will save the county more than $600,000 per year because previously these items were hauled out of the county to be recycled.

An ordinance was introduced June 16, 2016 at the Dane County Board to create a tipping fee for the purpose of clean wood waste recycling. It will need county board approval before the county can implement the new clean wood recycling program. If approved, the wood recycling program could start as soon as July 18, 2016.