Staff writer
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| JEROME A. POLLOS/Press Rick Daugherty operates an excavator used to load one of Abco Wood Recycling's massive grinders Monday at its Post Falls facility. |
Wood recycling extends life of area landfills
POST FALLS -- With their noses to the grindstone and their ears muffed for safety, Abco's crews take the daily grind to a new, literal level.
With the region's landfills filling all too fast, the time was ripe for an alternative way to get rid of wood waste from construction and development sites.
"The catalyst was landfill," said Larry Steckman, spokesman for Abco Wood Recycling, which this year is expected to grind as much as 75,000 tons of wood waste into landscaping material or fuel for wood-burning generation plants. "Fighting Creek ... only has so much to spare there. It will only be 25 years before they have to haul it elsewhere."
Without recycling, that time would be cut in half, he said.
Shawn Montee, owner of Shawn Montee Timber Co., conceived the idea in the mid 1990s, and began operations two years ago in Spokane, followed within a few months by a Post Falls operation at Seltice Way and Corbin Road. More expansion is planned this year in Yakima, Tri-Cities and Wenatchee, Wash., and Kalispell and Missoula, Mont.
"The increase is amazing over the last two years," Steckman said. "It hasn't leveled out."
Abco, with about 30 employees, operates a grinder at the Post Falls site, along with mobile service that provides land clearing and demolition service with grinding at development sites.
Because of the costs of hauling and disposing of waste, combined with the liability costs and convenience factors, Abco's services save money in the long run, Steckman said.
"We wouldn't do it otherwise," said Neil O'Keefe, project manager for SRM Development, which is expanding the Riverstone West project. Abco provided the "full Montee" to that area, removing buildings and trees and grinding them there.
The advantage for SRM is: "It's a turnkey operation," O'Keefe said. "It's environmentally friendly. We would rather do that than bury it for 1,000 years."
Abco launched their free Christmas tree recycling program in Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene and Hayden Lake last year and recycled 440 cubic yards of material.
"It's a fascinating business," Steckman said.
Trees, stumps and demolition byproducts can be sliced into a variety of sizes, with some woods dyed for use in landscaping and others ground for mulch. The less attractive material works well for the increasingly popular cogeneration plants, especially as energy costs rise and technology improves the quality and efficiency of combustion.
The voters of the Kellogg School District last year approved a levy to install a cogeneration system, one of many throughout the Northwest, something that has Rick Bishop, operations manager at the Kootenai County Solid Waste Department excited.
"It saves a lot of room in the landfill," Bishop said. "He's getting it out of my hair."
The Ramsey Road facility also operates a grinder that sends material as far away as Thompson Falls, Mont., and the University of Idaho in Montana.
Abco accepts material for recycling at the Post Falls plant. For information on hours and acceptable items, call (866) 303-0663.
