Recycling pressure treated wood

[Jenn]

I absolutely hate this stuff- almost never get it- but making some picket fence and have to admit it's best more water/weather proof than my garden beds. Anyway will have LOTS of 1.3x1.3x5" stubs, a few 3' long 4x4"s, several 2 ft long 2x4"s. Any suggestions for using this rather than just bagging and garbaging it as I will with all the sawdust I can gather up?

Might offer them on freecycle but can't dream up what use they'd be- can't make children's blocks out of them!

[travis91]

save it one day you will find a use for it.

[Wendy]

Wish I were closer, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

[TNHermit]

You can use the small peices as edging around a sidewalk,flower bed,along a drive or what ever. Put them in the ground at an angle or straight up and down.
The larger peices can be used for corner post for fencing. Cut them up and put a 45 angle use them as chocks under a trailer wheel. Buy a couple 8 footers and use the others for a clothes line. MAke a mailbox holder. No kind of wood goes to waste around my place.

[e.alleg]

I like to keep some 4x4 blocks handy for when I jack up the car or tractor I use them as an additional jackstand for extra safety.

[Jenn]

Thanks all I'll skip that freecycle ad!

[fordson major]

you could also make planter boxes outa it! saw a very nice planter box made from short cut ends in a popular science mag years ago (1970's)

[redgreenbluegil]

If it helps any, most (if not all) pressure treated wood sold to consumers no longer contains chromium or arsenic salts/oxides (CCA = Chromated Copper Arsenate). Pressure treated wood sold at the consumer level is mostly now ACQ = alkaline copper quaternary, which is supposedly much better for people handling/constructing with it and the environment. Check with the store you bought it at, or check the bar code sticker for CCA or ACQ. Menard's I believe sells their own version of ACQ that I think they call AC2. I still wouldn't make kid's blocks with it as you said, but it's not as bad as the old CCA treated wood. I'm with 4animals in the "save it and the project will come to you". In a slightly related topic on what to do with leftover lumber: When we were kids my grandpa knew someone that worked at a pallet factory and occasionally we would get huge loads of 1"x1"x4' long pine "sticks" that were scraps from the manufacturing process. We would make huge forts "Lincoln-Log" style with them and all sorts of structures. And of course when the neighbor kid came over we would have sword fights with them. We soon realized that it really hurt when the "sword" would slide down the length of each "sword" when they hit and then subsequently smash into our hands on occasion. We were a little young to know what a scabbard was!!!!

If nothing else, I would dig a trench around my chicken pen and bury it to stop burrowing predators.

[RedneckPete]

Throw it on your brush pile along with the sawdust you so painstakingly bagged and burn it.

Pete

[Jenn]

Originally Posted by RedneckPete

Throw it on your brush pile along with the sawdust you so painstakingly bagged and burn it.

Pete

The handout says not to burn it. I figure if they ADMIT it is toxic it has to be pretty bad. Maybe I can compost it with my poison ivy.

[PyroDon]

Originally Posted by Jenn

The handout says not to burn it. I figure if they ADMIT it is toxic it has to be pretty bad. Maybe I can compost it with my poison ivy.

it wont compost the copper is there to kill micro organisms and prevent decay .
sprinkly the saw dust around you foundation to keep termites at bay or under your wood pile . take the little piece and make a mini wishing well to put a plant in . The 4x4s work great for blocks.
CCA was taken off the market because of law suits not that it was overly toxic but that some people are alergic to it and a young child died from infection after a splinter give it a coupld years and ACQ will likely suffer the same fate .
truth be told many anti-bacterial disinfectants are far more toxic as are many house hold chemicals

[RedneckPete]

Originally Posted by Jenn

The handout says not to burn it. I figure if they ADMIT it is toxic it has to be pretty bad. Maybe I can compost it with my poison ivy.

The earth is a sealed system. Producing toxic chemicals and distributing them throughout the country is a bad idea. As citizens, storing these chemicals in our own backyards so that they are not released into the air has two outcomes. It not only hides the fact we have a looming environmental catastrophe, it also makes us liable for the chemicals we store.

I say release the toxins into the environment as quickly as possible. As soon as you do so your legal liability ends, and the government will have to deal with the toxins it has allowed into the environment.

Whether these toxins are tied up in a chunk of wood, the air or the earth, the net effect to the planet is bad bad bad. Butterflies die, rare sea urchins perish and the new fence I built fails to rot. Good deal for me, but it sucks to be a sea urchin.

Pete

[anniew]

My neighbor replaced a wooden deck. I took the old pieces and use them to set on the ground to put my firewood on. That way the firewood itself isn't touching the ground and rotting. I don't burn the treated stuff, just leave it there, and once the firewood is burned, I get another load and the base (treated wood) is still there to use over and over again to keep the firewood up off the ground and dry.

[Sgt.Sausage]

==> Throw it on your brush pile along with the sawdust you so painstakingly bagged and burn it.

Illegal in my little municipality. Not sure, but I think my entire state has prohibited burning of the stuff. I'll throw some small scraps on the fire now and then, but I don't think I'd ever burn large quangities of the stuff.