Sustainability
How pallet wood becomes mulch, and what it really costs
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Three per cent of the wood that comes into this yard ends up as mulch. That number is low on purpose, and keeping it low is most of what we do.
Grinding is the bottom of the waste hierarchy for wood, and it should be treated as an end point rather than a business model. A pallet worth nine dollars repaired is worth about fifty-five cents ground, and there is no processing cleverness that changes that ratio.
What actually gets ground
- Pallet lumber that failed the repair line and yielded no boards over 30" — split stringers, short ends, heavily nail-perforated stock.
- De-nailing waste: board ends, splinters and the trimmings from the remanufacture saws.
- Clean off-cuts from our own crating shop.
- Never: MB-stamped wood, CCA-treated timber, creosoted wood, painted wood, plywood, OSB, particleboard, or anything from a load with a contamination history.
The line
- 1
Pre-grind magnet
Loose fasteners, banding and strapping seals pulled from the feedstock. This is where most contamination is caught.
- 2
Hammer mill
The grinder itself. Screen size at this stage sets the coarse fraction.
- 3
Post-grind magnet
Overhead magnet across the chip stream. This pass is what decides whether the fibre can be sold at all.
- 4
Primary screen
Separates the 3/4" minus landscape fraction from oversize, which is re-fed.
- 5
Secondary screen
Pulls 1/2" minus for playground fibre and 1/4" minus for bedding.
- 6
Dust extraction
Bedding grade only. Dust is a respiratory issue for stabled animals.
- 7
Colour, if ordered
Iron-oxide and carbon pigments applied in a tumbler. Not solvent-based.
The grades that come off it
| Product | Screen | Share of fibre | Sells for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landscape mulch, natural | 3/4" minus | 46% | $19 – $22 / yd³ |
| Landscape mulch, coloured | 3/4" minus + pigment | 27% | $24 – $28 / yd³ |
| Playground fibre | 1/2" minus, fines out | 14% | $31 – $36 / yd³ |
| Animal bedding | 1/4" minus, dust extracted | 9% | $27 – $33 / yd³ |
| Path fines | Screened fines | 4% | $11 – $14 / yd³ |
The honest economics
We published the full repair-line numbers previously and this is the other half of that table. Grinding a core we paid $1.10 for costs about $0.32 to process and sells for roughly $0.55 as fibre. That is a loss of $0.87 per unit before overhead.
It is not a loss on every fraction — playground fibre and bedding carry a real margin, and colouring adds value for genuinely small cost. But on a blended basis, across the whole fibre line, it is close to break-even at best and negative when the feedstock cost is honestly accounted for.
The fibre line does not make money. It exists so that there is an honest end point for wood with nothing left, and so that we never have to write a cheque to a landfill.
Why we still do it ourselves
We could send residual wood to a third-party grinder. We do not, for three reasons: we would lose control of the feedstock exclusions that make our playground grade viable; we would lose the metal recovery; and we would lose the ability to say, with a straight face, that nothing leaves this yard as waste.
That last one matters more than it sounds. The moment you hand residual material to a third party, your zero-landfill claim becomes their zero-landfill claim, and you are vouching for a process you do not run.
If you are buying
- One cubic yard covers about 100 sq ft at 3 inches deep. Add 15% for settling and waste.
- 3 inches in shade, 4 in full sun on the Front Range. Charts written for the midwest under-specify for our evaporation rates.
- Keep it 3 inches clear of stems and trunks. Mulch piled against bark causes rot.
- Natural grade for edible beds. The pigments are inert, but there is no reason to add them to a vegetable patch.
- Order in March. Supply is unconstrained in late winter and the price is better than it will be in June.