MALAGA businesses have chipped in to help reduce the amount of timber going to landfill

The aim of the trial is look at ways to collect for recycling, the unused timber that has accumulated in the Malaga Business area over the years.

Approximately 200 tonne of wood waste was collected during the trial and delivered to the East Metropolitan Region’s new Hazelmere Timber Recycling Centre, where it was processed into woodchips suitable for a range of new products. The Hazelmere Timber Recycling Centre was established by the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council to divert industrial timber waste from landfill and recycle it as woodchip.

City of Swan Manager Waste Services, Colin Pumphrey said “The project had been in the planning for some time and had involved consultation with Malaga businesses since 2003 including various surveys to find out how businesses were disposing of their wood waste.”

Mr Pumphrey said “A large volume of timber packing and pallets are used by Malaga businesses but many businesses have difficulty in satisfactorily disposing of the material.

“Until the Hazelmere facility opened the only means of disposing of the material was by landfill through the Red Hill waste facility. A lot of the businesses in Malaga are small businesses that don’t have trucks or other means of getting rid of their timber waste.

“The trial collection together with the Hazelmere facility, enables material to be recycled that would otherwise stay in the area and become a fire hazard, end up rotting away, or go to landfill."

Recycling timber will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tree harvesting; one tonne of processed industrial timber woodchip is equal to harvesting five trees for woodchip. The recycled woodchip can be used as particleboard, animal bedding and compost or mulch.

The Laminex Group buys about 80 per cent of the pale and pine timber woodchips generated by the Hazelmere Timber Recycling Centre to make particleboard.

The trial collection created a great deal of interest from a large percentage of the businesses. The City of Swan will shortly prepare a report about the response and effectiveness plus the logistics and cost of possible further regular collections, not only for Malaga but also for the other commercial areas with in the City of Swan.