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| Zero Waste Maximum Profit….. by Mark Bell Mark is a tree surgeon who has run his own contracting business near Selby in North Yorkshire since 1983. It’s frightening when you think how much waste we produce in this industry. How much timber and chip ends up in landfill? Or how much is just piled up and set on fire? Money going up in smoke. It’s all too easy for us to think that it is just not worth it to faff around using our precious time sorting through timber to utilise its real value. After all I’d have to have time off work to concentrate on producing something from the timber I’ve got and time is my most expensive commodity.  That’s just what I used to feel. My business was growing and I wasn’t really interested in trying to develop anything else, but I had a growing mountain of woodchip and a massive stack of timber. I sold a few logs in the winter and few loads of chip here and there but I was producing more that I could sell. If I were to carry on like this much longer I would need to get a bigger yard to work from involving more expense. It just seemed to get worse – what with the LOLA kit checks, fuel prices rising, insurance rising annually in line with my rising pile of timber. I felt I was losing control of everything. I could set another team of men on to justify the expense of moving to another yard, but then we would need yet another vehicle and 2nd chipper and more kit and we would produce more timber and more chip ….oh damn it, I’ve had enough!After a lot of thinking and a bit of research I decided the only way out of this dilemma was to utilise my timber and woodchip so that I wasn’t just hoarding it. I wouldn’t have to move to a bigger yard. After all, we used to sell our timber. Every now and then, we would get a buyer to come in and take a full load . The buyer always said ‘timber prices aren’t worth anything nowadays, the price will only just cover the haulage.’ So I virtually gave the stuff away. However what these guys were actually doing was buying my times and transforming it into money. I get paid to take the tree down and then paid to take it away. I get my timber free….. surely I should be able to make this pay? I had a chat with Richard Slatem from Fuelwoods at the South Yorkshire Woodfair and he gave me a few shiny brochures and some sound advice. I had a look at some of the machines and a little play and ended up with a Japa 700 firewood processor. I coupled this with my old Fordson Major and got stuck into my timber mountain. This was more cost effective. We were producing tonnes of good fuel-wood in no time – loads better than the good old days of chain saw, axe and back ache. I started to take a few deliveries here and there but the most profitable way of selling the logs is in the bags from the gate. People just pull up, pay for a couple of bags and then off they go. I supply a couple of garage forecourts with netted logs now and get my nets from Medallion Net Co Ltd. The log business has been okay this year, it’s a good little job in its own right. The big pieces of timber that the Japa can’t manage started to mount up. I’ve bought an Alaskan planking saw, we’ve all seen them at the APF and various shows. It really is the most simple and most portable thing I’ve ever had, I’ve not sold any planks yet, I’ve been using the timber myself at home making some really quality batten doors. I’ve had people try and buy planks but I daren’t sell any until I’ve done all the doors through the house, made an oak dining room table, some garden furniture and an oak porch to go over the front door with a matching gate, etc etc. My wife Carol has made me a list! I’ve been tipping woodchip at a nearby site for a while now and the chap there is a sort of mad professor inventor. He has developed a purpose built riddle and named it Jimmy Riddle. It is to sort his woodchip into different grades, e.g. potting/seed compost; woodchip suitable for garden mulch; and larger woodchip suitable for wood burners. (I feel that with growing concerns over deforestation, gas, oil and coal; that woodchip burners are the future – even power stations are at it). The mad professor is selling quite a fair amount of these various chip types which he has very cleverly marketed. I am intending to invest in a Jimmy Riddle (love the name!) then I can sell the sorted chips at the gate alongside the logs. Builder supply businesses are interested in the chips for builders doing new-build estates etc. I am sure there are many more markets once we Jimmy Riddle and then look around. I’ve been doing chainsaw carving for quite some time now and I must be getting good now because Will Richardson from Yorwoods has asked me to come and carve at the Yorkshire Show in the forestry area in July. I’ve been selling the odd carving from the gate but this will be the biggest event I’ve ever carved at and I must admit I am nervous but I am sure it will go ok and that I will manage to sell a couple of carvings. I still haven’t discovered how to utilise the timber. Everybody has been utilising timber for absolutely yonks but I have been that wrapped up in other areas of my business I couldn’t see the wood for the trees but I feel that I am now back in control with Zero Waste Maximum Profit…… |
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