Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is one of three major US cities in the Cities4Forests network with substantial urban wood re-use opportunity. Photo by Zachary Anderson/Unsplash Imagine two trucks passing on a city street. One is a delivery truck carrying new wood flooring and furniture to stores and homes in the city. The other is carrying a fallen…
Marisa Repka is the Co-Founder & CFO of Cambium Carbon, a public benefit corporation working to build a circular economy model for wood reuse. Learn more here.
Imagine two trucks passing on a city street. One is a delivery truck carrying new wood flooring and furniture to stores and homes in the city. The other is carrying a fallen city tree damaged by a recent storm, taking it out of town to be mulched, burned or sent to a landfill.
EDGERTON
The city of Edgerton lined its downtown streets with ash trees in the 1980s. The trees provided shade and beauty for many years.
Then the emerald ash borer invaded, slowly killing the ashes.
The city had to remove and store the big trees, a cost many cities face, City Administrator Ramona Flanigan noted. But Edgerton city government, Edgerton High School staff and students, and local businesses have turned the project into a win-win-win.
The city and school district stand to save money, and thereâs even an added benefit to the environment. More on that later.
The city paid $25,375 last year to grind its brush pile, which accumulated over several years, into chips, Flanigan said. Now, some of the tree parts are being recycled.