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Thornhill dump shouldn’t burn milled lumber

The regional district burns perfectly good usable lengths of expensive lumber, says letter writer
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To submit a letter to the editor, e-mail michael.willcock@terracestandard.com. Include your first and last name or initials and a last name, and your city of residence. Letters will be edited.

To the editor,

As someone who spent the summer moving cord after cord of firewood for my winter supply, I had to ask where the square stack of 4” x 6 ” lumber stacked alongside the wood stove in my neighbour’s living room came from. Each piece of lumber was clear, no knots, planed smooth, and sawed as square as only a mill can.

He told me it had been “construction debris” dropped off at the Thornhill transfer station intended to be trucked to its final destination where it was destined to be burned. The twelve pieces I was admiring had been cut from a 16 foot long beam he had hauled home with smaller lumber remnants; he “knows a guy”.

I couldn’t guess the retail value of a 4” x 6” x 16 foot beam, but I do know the cost of a cord of regular firewood. To think I separate plastic bags from plastic containers before adding them to my recycling, as a way to save the environment, while the regional district burns perfectly good usable lengths of expensive lumber ridicules my earnest efforts.

Surely the regional district could devise an economical way to recycle such a valuable commodity as milled lumber?

Claudette Sandecki,

Thornhill, B.C.


 


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michael.willcock@terracestandard.com