Ideas to dispose of land clearing waste

[4570Man]

I’ve given away a bunch of logs off clearing jobs. It’s easy to do this time of year.

 

[Hay Dude]

I’ve given away a bunch of logs off clearing jobs. It’s easy to do this time of year.

Hardwood? yes
Pine? not easy

 

[airbiscuit]

These folks might have some ideas for you.

Urban Wood Network - A Network of Municipalities, Arborists, Sawmills, Suppliers, Manufacturers & Makers, Professionals, and Stakeholders

 

[Sprinkler Fitter]

Anyone with wood outdoor boilers around you?

Why can’t you burn over 5”?

 

[mikester]

The cheapest option is to burn but that also takes the most time.

If you want fast, hire a 30 ton excavator to dig a big hole and bury everything. You can then rent a forestry mulcher to do final cleanup. Would probably be cheaper than hiring someone to haul away...around here at least.

In my area you need a CDL to haul over 10,000lbs truck and a CVOR and commercial insurance. $500/yr just to get your annual inspection done...not cheap anymore...even farm plates are now forced into annual inspections.

 

[Sprinkler Fitter]

The cheapest option is to burn but that also takes the most time.

If you want fast, hire a 30 ton excavator to dig a big hole and bury everything. You can then rent a forestry mulcher to do final cleanup. Would probably be cheaper than hiring someone to haul away...around here at least.

In my area you need a CDL to haul over 10,000lbs truck and a CVOR and commercial insurance. $500/yr just to get your annual inspection done...not cheap anymore...even farm plates are now forced into annual inspections.

Seems like that would be a massive hole to bury all that and make all that land worthless to build anything at least near that hole because of decomposing wood for how many years

 

[4570Man]

Seems like that would be a massive hole to bury all that and make all that land worthless to build anything at least near that hole because of decomposing wood for how many years

Yea I wouldn’t burry that mess. Where I live it usually isn’t possible to dig a hole that deep but my dad tried that about 20 years ago a few counties over where you actually can dig a big hole. That hole is probably still sinking as the wood rots. For a couple years it was settling a lot like several feet at a time. I would clear a bigger spot and just shove it all in the corner out of the way before I buried it.

 

[Carl_NH]

I agree on the BioMass Energy plants - there are several in New England. When we had 4 acres cleared they chipped everything except the logs and sold the rest to Shiller Station in Newington NH for 30$ ton - took 6 tractor trailer loads of chips. Shiller stopped taking wood waste in 2024, but depending your location there are plants in ME MA and CT that still burn wood waste.

It's a matter of getting it chipped. I would rent a large chipper - 12-14" and feed it with an excavator - probably get a lot chipped in a few days. For the rest of the dirt/roots/rocks burning is best - just get a few piles going and keep feeding it for a few days.

Then dig a hole and bury the remaining bits that dont burn. It's a lot of work clearing ground - what are you doing with the stumps? That was my biggest cost - $1750 a tractor trailer load 4 loads.

 

[4570Man]

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.

Are the cops going to come if you start a fire with pieces over 5”? If you piled up a pile as big as a truck, let it burn down some and repeated the process you would be done in a couple days. It’s going to take much longer to chip that with anything less than a belt feed behemoth chipper.

 

[future_vision]

You can buy a dump truck cheap, then sell it when you are done. Or hire a local to haul logs to processor.

Even a 26,000 GVWR dump truck (no CDL required) can haul 6 tons of logs at a time.
Non-CDL dump trucks are easy to sell since anyone can drive them.

Logs are lighter than stone, dirt or sand. A dump truck loaded with logs has lots of air space, so the loads don’t weigh all that much.

It's the cost of disposal that can add up.