Wood is a loop,
not a line.
This is not a page about intentions. It is three claims with arithmetic attached: nothing we take in is landfilled, every reuse avoids a measurable amount of carbon, and reuse beats recycling by an enormous margin.
Ask for a diversion statement
Tell us your volumes and we will send the arithmetic for your own reporting, with every assumption attached.
- Landfill rate
- 0.0% since 2016
- Audit
- Quarterly, third party
- Net CO₂e per reuse
- ≈1.4 kg avoided
- Reused whole
- 71% of intake mass
Recycling is the fourth-best option.
Almost all of the environmental benefit in this industry lives in the first two steps. Everything below them is damage control.
- 01
Reduce
Ship without a pallet where the product allows it. Beats every option below, and we will say so even though it means no sale.
- 02
Reuse
The same object, the same job, again. No reprocessing, no energy, no value lost. This is where the benefit is.
- 03
Repair
The same object restored to the same job for about a third of replacement cost.
- 04
Remanufacture
Harvested parts become a different object of similar value — cut-downs, crates, collars, furniture.
- 05
Recycle
The material loses its form and most of its value, and reprocessing costs energy. Mulch, bedding, fiber.
- 06
Recover energy
Last resort for wood that cannot safely be a material. We never call this recycling.
A $40 engineered pallet used once is worse than a $12 recycled unit used seven times — financially and environmentally.
The carbon ledger
Conservative, defensible arithmetic for what a reused pallet actually saves — written so it can survive a sustainability auditor rather than impress a brochure reader.
AuditZero to landfill
The claim is simple and the proof is tedious: every pound of wood that enters this yard leaves as a product, and a third party checks the scales four times a year.
PrimerLoops, not lines
A short, non-preachy primer on circularity using the most boring object in global trade as the example.
Type a quantity into the Grain Index and it returns the ledger.
Avoided CO₂e, board feet kept in service, tons diverted and tree equivalents — all calculated in your browser, with the assumptions published.
Open the Grain IndexEvidence appendix
The arithmetic and the audit trail, in full. Every figure here is rounded down on purpose — a sustainability claim that cannot survive scrutiny is worse than no claim at all.
Where every pound of intake goes
| Stream | Destination | Share of intake mass | Verified by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reusable whole | Grading and resale | 71% | Unit counts + weighbridge |
| Repairable | Repair benches | 20% | Bench lot records |
| Board harvest | Repair stock for other units | 3% | Internal transfer tickets |
| Remanufacture | Cut-downs, crate components, collar panels, furniture | 2% | Shop records |
| Material grind | Mulch, bedding, path and arena fiber | 3% | Grind batch weights |
| Industrial fuel | Regional boiler — never called recycling | 1% | Outbound scale tickets |
| Metal | Scrap recycler by weight | <1% | Scrap receipts |
| Landfill | — | 0.0% | Quarterly third-party audit since 2016 |
2025 averages by mass. Landfill has no row because it has no tonnage. Part of how that stays true is refusing material we cannot route: painted, stained or pressure-treated lumber, engineered panel, and anything contaminated with food residue, chemicals or hydrocarbons.
The carbon ledger method
| Quantity | Figure | What it covers | Why it is conservative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avoided emissions per reuse | 1.62 kg CO₂e | Lumber production, milling and assembly of the new-build pallet not manufactured | Excludes avoided landfill methane and avoided transport of new stock |
| Net of our own operations | ≈1.4 kg CO₂e | After grinder, chambers, forklifts and fleet diesel | This is the figure we will put in writing |
| Lumber kept in service | 32 board feet | A standard GMA 48×40 unit | Measured at the low end of observed board thickness |
| Trips added per repair cycle | 5–7 | Useful journeys gained by repairing rather than replacing | Our fleet data shows 6.8 average; we publish 5 |
| Diverted mass | 35 lb per unit per cycle | Weight kept out of landfill | Dry weight at 15% MC, not as-received |
| Material recovery at end of life | 96% | Material streams only | Excludes the 1% that becomes industrial fuel |
Deliberately low. We leave out avoided landfill methane (which would roughly double the headline) and in-wood carbon storage, because both are contested in accounting conventions and a claim that cannot survive an auditor is worse than no claim.
What the fiber line produces
| Product | Screen | Feedstock restriction | Goes to | Minimum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Landscape mulch | 1"–2" single grind | Pallet wood only; no C&D, no painted, no engineered panel | Municipal and commercial landscaping, residential bulk | 10 cu yd delivered |
| Playground & path fiber | Double grind, fines screened out | HT stock only | Trails, dog parks, riding arenas | 10 cu yd |
| Animal bedding | Fine grind, kiln run, triple screened | HT stock only, segregated at the grinder | Equine and livestock operations | 10 cu yd |
| Arena fiber | Coarse, de-fined | HT stock only | Riding arenas, paddocks | 20 cu yd |
| Boiler biomass | 3" minus hog fuel, moisture declared | Takes the chemically treated and unknown-origin stream | Regional industrial steam and co-generation | By the ton |
Three magnetic separation passes — one after each size change — plus a hand inspection of the finished windrow before anything is loaded. Grinding does not remove steel; it exposes new steel, which is why the magnets come after every stage rather than only at the start. Iron-oxide colourant available on landscape mulch; natural undyed always available and recommended for vegetable beds.
The reuse hierarchy we actually follow
- 01
Gate & segregation
Weighbridge ticket, then sorting by treatment type and origin before anything is cut. Painted, treated or unknown-origin wood is separated here and never enters the mulch or bedding lines. Contaminated material is refused.
- 02
Breakdown & inspection
Units are broken down and inspected board by board. Deck boards are flexed by hand; anything that creaks, splits at a nail hole or shows end-grain separation comes off.
- 03
Stringer judgement
Cracks longer than a third of the stringer depth, or any crack crossing a notch, send the member to the plug bench or condemn it. This single check decides most of the economics.
- 04
Repair & re-nail
Board swap, companion board, plug, plate, trim. Then every fastener on the unit is driven or replaced — the invisible half of the work, and the part cheap yards skip.
- 05
Moisture & square
Pin meter on random units per lot, reading recorded. Diagonals measured; out-of-square beyond ½" is corrected, not shipped. Above 19% MC the load waits in the dry stack or goes through the kiln.
- 06
Grade, stamp & lot
Grade, build date and lot in soy ink on a stringer face, so a disputed load traces back to the bench and shift that built it. Heat treatment and IPPC marking for anything crossing a border.