Eleven useful ways to recycle sawdust:
one. Removing weeds in the backyard.
two. Gift it for pet cages like hamsters and rabbits.
3. Make fire starters (use an old, paper-type egg carton, fill each section with sawdust, melt wax, pour wax into each section (be careful with hot wax), then start one when you need it.
Four. Absorb leaking liquids and spills in a garage.
5. Put in compost piles. Sawdust balances out green things like grass clippings. You can package it in 40-gallon garbage bags and give it to gardeners. (BUT: walnut sawdust can affect your plants because walnuts and other members of the same family (walnuts, walnuts, etc.) produce a toxin in their leaves, roots, and bark that is designed to kill other vegetation around them The toxin is called “juglone” and is basically a way for the nuts to ensure they have less competition for light, nutrients, etc. However, not all plants are susceptible to it and, in theory, the wood itself does not contain as much toxin as the other parts of the tree).
6. A person with livestock might want to take them off their hands (BUT: Hobby shop dust is not the same as industrial mill shavings. Hobby shop sawdust is fine enough to harm animals. Wood chips are better for use with cattle because they are larger.)
7. Hank Phillips uses oak sawdust in the smoker when he runs out of wood chips. He moistens a few heaping handfuls with a little beer and throws in a lump or two when he needs it.
8. The ‘Furniture Guys’ use wood chips to rub the furniture when they clean the finish with Napha. They like it better than steel wool because it removes the finish without scratching the wood underneath.
9. Mark Page: “I have a high composition of clay in the soil here, that’s why it’s Clay County here in Missouri. The sawdust first goes into the flower beds and the garden. Any leftover is sprinkled on the lawn. Another note that I continue and I suppose that it is correct, it is that the sawdust extracts nitrogen from the soil to decompose it, so it must be supplemented with nitrogenous fertilizer”.
10 Raku pottery uses sawdust in its process. This includes filling a steel trash can with sawdust and newspapers. You then take the pottery out of the kiln and put it on the sawdust while it’s still red hot, where it quickly starts a fire. Sawdust creates a unique finish for pottery.
eleven John Bailey: “I save the dust from the band saw to use as an epoxy filler. The dust from the random orbital sander is also good.”
and not so good, #12. “Several years ago, I took a tour of Winnebago Industries in Forest City, Iowa (in fact, I went several times while waiting for service in my RV). The tour included the cabinet shops where large quantities of sawdust were produced. MDF, particle board or plywood, the same stuff any cabinet shop would produce. Their dust and scrap collection was impressive. Piles upon piles were left outside. It was explained that pig farmers would take whatever they could as feed for their pigs composition of the waste and they told him that since the company was formed in the 1950s, this is how they disposed of their sawdust”.