I believe I witnessed the most impressive recycle event just yesterday. I live in a small town of about 9,000 people. Once a year the city shuts down its public works department for a week to clean up the town. They encourage everyone to put any junk they don't want out at the curb. Junk dealers come from miles around to pick thru what people put out. Then the city picks up everything else. Its like a parade with no clowns. A group of about 50 workers come down the street with dump trucks, backhoes, Skid seers and trailers. They sift thru all the left over junk and separate it for recycle. Very impressive effort.

That is Awesome!

Wow. I wish our town would do that. Do they take paints, oil, and other liquid waste?

No they don't take chemicals or tvs but everything else. The day before the town looks like a natural disaster hit with junk piled in every yard, its hard to believe they can clean it up in a week. This town also picks up your limbs and yard waste once a month and mulches it for compost.

That's cool.

Our town does do collections on a lesser scale. They will take garbage, yard waste, and recyclables weekly, and larger or more unusual discards with a phoned in scheduled pick-up. They do however, encourage junk dealers to sort through the garbage the night before pickup to re-use what folks are throwing out. I love seeing the trucks driving down the street and collecting "garbage" knowing it will find a different home other than dump.

Mine does it on a quarterly basis which makes it rough to find the furniture and the like because its buried under 4 months of tree and brush trimmings.....

Great thread - just discovered it!

On the question of pallets, for exotic woods, check with motorcycle dealers or anyone who imports large items from exotic places. Often they are shipped from Japan or China, and are far more likely to have exotic woods composing their pallets. To them, it's just wood, like oak, ash or maple is to us.

Styrofoam can be a curse, but it also can be recycled. I have been collecting styrofoam ice chests from hospitals that I then cut apart and use to insulate my workshop. If a 1/8" slice of styrofoam can protect your hand from boiling coffee, a 1" thick piece will insulate your shop very nicely! I can now heat and cool my shop without breaking the bank!

I just hate to see anything of value end up in a land fill.

When I worked for NCR, we often got shipments from our plant in San Palo. Brazil and they always came on mahogany pallets. The ***ed things were so heavy, no one wanted to mess with them.... except me! I still have some left in the shop waiting for a project.

If you want to hear a good story on smuggling in banned exotic wood, read or listen to the Stuart Woods novel, HOT MAHOGANY. The technique employed is a classic and was based on a true story.

Oh, my! I'm really liking that!

That is really beautiful wood.

I live close to the LA fires we had recently in Southern California. I was feverishly cutting large branches that were over or close to building structures on my property. One of the trees is a very old Chinese Elm tree. Some of the branches were as thick as four inches. Instead of making firewood out of them, I thought I would cut them into planks. They are very heavy, dense, and very beautiful, with different shades of color. Now I just need to dry them so they don't warp and figure out what to make out of them.
KJ