Posted by Snow in 
This fine weekend I was out and about taking pictures when I came upon a recycling and re-use opportunity. Huge virgin stacks of freshly cut project-perfect wood. And instead of walking on by, thinking nothing of the spectacle before me, my mind started working on a green bent. Was there a re-use or recycling opportunity here?
As always when there is a loud frenetic whining of massive mechanized chainsaws, neighbors come running. The early morning air of the quiet Los Angeles leafy suburb was alight with the sound of …community services trucks yawing in the air, their saws and personnel removing dastardly tree cover.
But what struck me the most visually immediate was the piled logs of massive tree stumps stacked in a huge bundle in the back of one of the trucks. (See the image) The size of each of these pieces of wood was stunning. Was this landfill fodder?
When I was in Oregon , craftsmen and carvers and re-use artisans would have been all over the back of that truck. Each one of these trunk slabs would have been fought over and brought home as a prize to cure in the garage for a year. But this was the city of Burbank, California, and someone mentioned it might be wood chipped for mulch?
We aren’t talking about end table material here. Each one of these cuts would have made a respectable nature walk bench or living room showpiece. One of the slabs looked like someone had put a piece of wood shaped like a sweet potato and put it into the aggrandizer to a scale of 1:12500.
The organic shape of that piece alone would have made a respectable wedge mount for a glass surface, or a slab bench for any park or nature hike (several of which were located a few miles North). Even with one of those transparent glass table tops from the 1970’s, any of them would have made a stunning (and green friendly) addition to any Burbank neighborhood den or living room.
But what I didn’t see was any opportunity to communicate with the organizing agency about getting one of these enormous slabs of wood. The neighbors, over whose homes the trees were being cut, talked excitedly under the waterfall of chainsaw noise. Where were these Prius-sized chunks of wood going? Could they be claimed and re-used?
I tried to make myself heard above the chainsaws, but it was too loud. I wrote the question on a piece of paper, and the neighbors said they didn’t know. One of the ladies said that the services personnel would drop the wood in a truck for you, if you had a truck. (Given the size of these beasts, that would be half the job).
But how would I have had notice to bring my truck to this scene or location? Was there some organization to this madness? Did citizens have an opportunity to reclaim and re-use this wood? What an opportunity for the nearby Creative Arts Center to give a wood sculpting class or a challenge for local artisans to make wood pieces for a local charity auction or museum benefit.
I will try to see what the endpoint of this fabulous organic resource is.
It doesn’t get more locavore than this!
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