Are Hardwood shavings with some glue in it good to use?

Hi there,

I just registered to this site to ask opinions of this specific topic. (and found out what a great place this is...)
So as a woodworker I have access to hardwood shavings (oak). Which I think could be good for using compost and/or help our clay soil under our food trees, or in our woods, etc. The problem is that these shavings might contain some traces of wood glue in it. We mainly use water and heat resistant D4 and PU. The concentration of it in the shavings in my calculations is below 1%. My concern is that although I have access to this "vast" amount of metarial (for free) which could really help our land I am well aware of the issues with the glue.
In my opinion people have done much worse with soil already and it is a really small amount, so I trust nature that it can handle it without issue.
Also my girlfriend is biologist and she knows what these materials could do with our health and our environment.
Would any of you use such method? What would you choose to do (with limited other resources)?
Thanks in advance

p.s.: I searched in the forum but did not find similar topic yet. Please let me know if there is one.

Csaba Czirko wrote:Also my girlfriend is biologist and she knows what these materials could do with our health and our environment.
.

If my partner, spouse, or friend, thought the glues are a bad idea, I would value their opinion.

Maybe it would be good to switch to a natural glue?

https://permies.com/t/369248/Natural-glue-finer-woodworking-lutherie

Other threads of interest:

https://permies.com/t/171262/Wood-glue-alternatives

https://permies.com/t/286604/Cutting-Board-Glues-safe

Csaba,

I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I just did a quick search and unfortunately, it needs to be treated as toxic waste.  This is a sort of medium level tragedy because all the oak in that pile certainly is tempting.  And sadly, burning is a bad idea because of those same ingredients in the glue.  

About the only thing I can think of is to use the shavings as a material to compress into some type of brick—which probably requires more glue so the original problem compounds—and using those bricks as a structural material.  

I really wish I had better news.



Eric

Can you give me specific product names? Then I can look up the SDS and other documents and offer a more informed opinion.

The challenge, as you say, is that it is 99% good organic material. There has to be a practical way to reuse this without doing harm.

Personally I would be cautious about using this on food producing areas. I might be less fussy if it were for shelterbelt trees in a place that would never be cultivated -- the good might outweigh the bad.

But could this be used as a medium for fungal bioremediation on sites that are already contaminated? Maybe.

Shavings are good insulation, and yours are 99% natural. Would I have an outbuilding with your shavings as insulation instead of styrofoam? Sure.

Would I sit in a beanbag chair stuffed with your shavings instead of styrofoam packing peanuts? Absolutely.

my 2c.

It depends a lot on the glue.  Some glue used in woodworking is nothing more than thick jello (without the sugar and flavouring).  Others are pure plastic.  Most are somewhat between.

Personally, I would snatch it up and use it away from food production and not livestock bedding.   A healthy soil biomeme can often remove toxins from the soil.  

But everyone in the home needs to feel comfortable, and for ease of living, go with the most sensitive.

I'd turn it into char.

There are lots of recent studies showing that pyrolysis of non-recyclable plastics results in useful forms of char.

Not only that, but co-pyrolysis of wood and plastic together reduces the toxic off-gassing of the plastic.

The tiny bit of plastic potentially present in your shavings and dust would not be an issue in this context.

Hey Chance, if you have a link or two, please share it. Interesting stuff.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Hey Chance, if you have a link or two, please share it. Interesting stuff.

You got it, sir.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S275381252500062X

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667056924000506

Source: HAL-Mines Albi https://share.google/w2wuo8zfOgWossYAZ

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1876107024000956

If I had access to wood shavings (and I do!), I would compost it and trust biology to decompose the small amount of glue eventually.

Where I am, good soil is hard to come by. Either it sand or loam. Wonderful to build a house, but plants struggle. Mixing in wood shavings did help a lot and composting the mix helped even more.

Consider what happens to the wood shavings otherwise. Either they get dumped (maybe in a landfill) somewhere or incinerated.
If you prepare a good, separate compost pile, the chances that the right microbes will come and feed on the glue are pretty high.
Unless the glue contains heavy metals, I would not worry too much about it.

I wonder if there's a way to process the shavings first to remove some of the glue, then proceed with other suggestions here. I'm not imagining 100%, but something like 80% glue removed for 20% of the effort.

What effect would occur soaking the shavings in water for a few days, weeks? Months? Would the gluey shavings float or sink? Would the glue stay attached? What about soaking in other types of nontoxic-gick?

Would a controlled fungi-composting bin break down the wood and leave big chunks of glue to be screened out? Or, back to the soaking idea, how would the fungal-gluey-shavings behave in water?

Could be fun to run some experiments!

If you could get them 80% cleaner, that might open up options you're comfortable with.

Note - I'm imagining the floor of my own workshop after doing some planing or drawknife stuff. Sure, I assume there's a trace of glue if I'm smoothing out a piece of joinery, for example. On the other hand, if I'm cutting plywood, mdf, or pressure treated wood, I treat that stuff like toxic waste and vacuum it up pretty thoroughly and send it to the landfill.

Thank you everyone for all the responses, together-thinking. I like this approach .
A kind of summary of my responses:
If I am not using the sahvings, it will be burnt. Which I know is much worse than using it in a way more efficient way. So I knod of trying to save the thing. I will surely try that soaking method. Sounds interesting. I will also check the ingredients of the glue used and share it with you.
Our land is in a valley almost at the bottom, and have some woods (no edibale things in it) above. The whol e hillside is on clay basis with pine trees on it, so the soil is not so good. The other idea is to scatter the sahvings up in the woods to get some material for soil to hold as much water as possible. This way it will help the system, but not directly effect our garden and fruit trees. I trust nature's healing abality to hande this much of 'toxic' material.

Thanks again and let's heal our soil.
Csaba