Recycling Empty Tree Boxes

[Scooter]

From this week's WSCA Rumour Mill Roundup:

Speaking of estimates crossing our desk lately here are some we have a direct hand in. It takes almost a million cartons to store and transport the seedlings the silviculture industry plants annually according to one of our major packaging suppliers. Imagine that as 125 transport trailer units packed with flattened boxes. Or close to 1,875 tons of waste boxes, a large portion of which by weight is wax, going to the landfill each year. Dumping them there runs about $2000 per truckload. Add in the time spent rounding them up in the field and all that goes with that and we have an estimated $250,000 plus price tag for properly disposing the boxes. This is money the industry has to spend each year. So is there something smarter we can be doing? We are not the only ones with this problem of disposing cartons. The produce, meat and fish production industries all use wax boxes too and have to get rid of them. The WSCA has been asked to help out. One option is to use the heat contained in these boxes by recycling them as artificial combustible fuel logs. Unfortunately the only plant we have found doing this is in Georgia, U.S.A. So there is the problem of shipping costs. We look forward to your ideas.

[Scooter]

What are people's thoughts about just burning them? I don't think it's a very environmentally-conscious approach, and some sort of recycling would be a lot better. But I think for now, burning them is better than filling up landfills everywhere, although that's not great in terms of carbon release. Maybe a better solution would be to bury them on the blocks (I'm referring to cardboard only, and diverting the bundle wrappers to a landfill). But that takes more energy, so if it weren't for the carbon release issue, burning would be better than burying.

All of the empties from my camp usually end up in landfills, but I know that in quite a few areas, the foresters allow planters to put all the cardboard by slash piles and it then gets burned in the fall when the piles are being burned. Here's a photo of a pile that I saw yesterday on a block in Mackenzie. Spectrum is burning there now, so I would be surprised if these boxes are already burned today. At least it alleviates the issue of filling up landfills, and it also saves a lot of money for contractors or for foresters who avoid paying landfill fees (in several areas, the contracts are written so the mill or BCTS reimburses for landfill costs on the empty boxes).

The idea mentioned in the WSCA newsletter (recycling into combustible logs) is awesome. I wonder if there's any money in it. Perhaps a motivated planting contractor could become interested in setting up a small operation converting the boxes to logs. It would be a good fall project, once the planting season is over, and going into the winter heating & holiday season.

[newforest]

Ain't no party like a box-fire party?

I'm sure I've lit off some piles that could be seen from space for a few minutes. Short days, 20 planters, busy in all directions could mean burning boxes through several hours of darkness.

Even right in Georgia I've never really solved this problem, though I might look into that wax-log recycle plant idea, first I've heard of it. Though currently my favorite nursery in Georgia does take boxes back, though few others take advantage of that. So I get a few bucks off my bill and side job referrals whenever I need them. I go way back with that nursery, whatever helps each of us.

When we (rarely) get a hold of wax boxes with no logo, I have got some amazing deals on fresh seafood by trading them at the dock.

This guy I used to work for once talked a nursery into accepting the boxes back, on a 1,600 box purchase, for $1/box. About halfway through using the seedlings, he got in a huge argument with them over their report that one of the bundles of boxes, supposed to be 50 each, was actually 49 boxes, so he only got a $49 credit on his bill. They were sick of his BS so they quit taking the boxes back. He was such a stupid tightwad sometimes.

But ultimately, I have never solved this problem, except with a Bic lighter, though I would prefer a better solution. Be glad you don't have to deal with seedlings packed in kraft paper bags...

[Scooter]

Almost no tree planter in the known or in any unknown parallel universe wants to see boxes going back to the nurseries to be re-used. And even if a few planters don't mind, the management staff who have to move the boxes around are even more adamant that they don't get used.

For those who aren't aware, the recycled boxes are less structurally sound (often by far), collapse, and create all kinds of stock handling issues which are hard on the trees (so a lot of foresters aren't fond of them either). Boxes that don't stack well in trucks or reefers end up slowly crushing bundles within boxes. Boxes that have to be moved by ATV end up blowing apart with bundles of trees all over the access trails, or inadvertently crushed by ATV's.

When the ultimate cost of a box of trees runs to close to a dollar per tree (including nursery cost, contractor cost, and management/overhead cost), no forester in their right mind will ever prioritize saving three or four dollars per box if it means poor stock handling and increased mortality on a few hundred dollars worth of trees. That is, if they are serious about their jobs.

[newforest]

Yes, I have purchased PRT boxes. The base cardboard is less strong that what is commonly used for seedling boxes in the USA, and I know of boxes that have gone through the nursery system about 3x (the nurseries that do on occasion take them back do end up rejecting some). The "tall rectangle" design (longer vertically) probably is better for air circulation, but less good for strength of the box. We typically use a "short rectangle" (longer horizontally), and with a bit less room for extra air circulation at the top, which is probably also stronger when stacking boxes. (Also aids the center of gravity of a trailer or other mobile platform when moving the boxes)

Also exposing the box to humidity weakens the cardboard over time as well. Boxes turned over quickly from packing to planting (common here, with extraction during planting season, not in advance) will be in better residual condition than ones packed, stored, shipped, and then stored some more in changing humidity situations.

I hope the industry everywhere finds a better solution on what to do with all those boxes though...

[RPF]

They make great fire starter for burning slash piles. If we are going to burn slash piles anyway, why not use these wax covered boxes to help ignite them. I would suggest flattening and storing the boxes where they can be quickly retrieved for burning season. It's much cheaper than using other forms of ignition such as a gas/diesel mixture, or propane.

[Nate]

They make great fire starter for burning slash piles. If we are going to burn slash piles anyway, why not use these wax covered boxes to help ignite them. I would suggest flattening and storing the boxes where they can be quickly retrieved for burning season. It's much cheaper than using other forms of ignition such as a gas/diesel mixture, or propane.

Some places do this. I did one contract, can't remember client, who asked us to stick empty boxes in slash piles. Makes a lot of sense, I wonder what the environmental impact would be if every seedling box that got produced got burned every year though?

Either way, seedling storage/transport is a definite opportunity for innovation in the industry.

[Scooter]

seedling storage/transport is a definite opportunity for innovation in the industry.

I think that a lot of planters don't realize the extent of the costs of shipping trees on some projects. I remember that for one of the BCTS jobs that recently got opened, the shipping costs worked out to around 2.9 cents per tree.

When you start off with thirty cent trees, and you take off 10% of that just for shipping (before paying planters or covering any overhead), you start to sit up and pay attention to just how thin the margins have becoming on planting projects.

[newforest]

I worked for one Forester who had us just simply scatter the wax-coated boxes around the deck area, though this was on a no-site-prep block that had a few months of vegetative growth on it from the previous growing season. "They aren't going anywhere, and the hunters won't care, and they will be the only human beings that ever see this piece of land for quite a while. Just flatten them and make sure they don't crush a planted seedling." We saw the results of his decision on an adjacent block - here and there a flat piece of white cardboard that hadn't quite rotted down yet. I think the little micro-organisms know exactly what to do with wax. This was, however, in a long growing-season area where Pine rotations are creeping below 30 years now.

[RPF]

I'm definitely not a fan of leaving boxes on site like that. All that does is encourage others who see this mess that it's ok to dump other forms of "garbage" in the woods.

[Nate]

Yeah, straight littering them seems like a bizarre thing for a forester to suggest/approve. Must be a harvesting forester who lost an in-house poker game and had to be the one to deal with the silviculture shit.

[newforest]

only time ever in all these years. it was about 2 miles of 4x4 action from the gate, planters, etc. shuttled in by pick-up loads instead of the normal van load. plenty of littering by the locals, yeah - right @ the gate. that area has plenty of a weed called "Dog Fennel" that averages about 3m in height the first growing season after planting but isn't a serious competitive problem for seedlings. very, very few human beings ever saw those boxes ever again.


I like the slash pile idea but I don't see those burned very often any more

I still haven't tracked down that place in Georgia that might want them but will be doing some new cold-calls in hopes of a job in SE Georgia next December, want to see some folks down that way re: The Altamaha River but want to have a job there to help with the travel. so might yet look into that.

[newforest]

Yeah, straight littering them seems like a bizarre thing for a forester to suggest/approve. Must be a harvesting forester who lost an in-house poker game and had to be the one to deal with the silviculture shit.

That forester in question was the opposite, enjoyed mucking around with the planters a few weeks every winter. He told me some things about the future of timber supply and markets in the area that have 100% proven true many years later now.

But I have met my share of people in timber management who feel like dealing with tree planters is the shit detail. When planters complain about falling prices and race-to-the-bottom mentality, I just think about the Forestry Techs (checkers) who hate the work and do a terrible job, thus ignoring/allowing essentially no contract spec enforcement. The next rotation is the next Forester's problem, not theirs. They studied Forestry for the glory of cruising the Timber, and as a contractor friend of mine puts it: "young-age management is the bastard step-child of the Industry."

[Scooter]

Some foresters pick specially designated gravel pits that aren't in the public eye, and burn them in the fall.