Burnt wood from a paper plant should i use?

There is a paper plant nearby and they use wood as fuel. they are dumping a bunch of burnt charred wood almost looks like bio char next to my property. I was asked if I would allow them to dump here is this a good idea>?

sounds like an awesome score! Just be sure none of the wood is pressure-treated and you should be good to go, either for soil amendments or fuel....

In general a paper plant should not be burning treated wood. They would be burning left over wood or parts of the trees that they are not using for paper. (Bark small pieces of wood etc).

I would talk with the people of the mill to check at what part of the paper making process they are using the "left overs" to burn (Pre or post bleaching). That would be the only area I would be concerned about (has the stuff they are burning been processed with any chemicals).

In the past it was not so bad to use ash from paper mills and biomass plants because what they burned was wood. Here in Maine it was a pretty sweet deal and soon they had more people wanting it then they had to get rid of. naturally they had to ruin that, so with logic that defies logic they decided to mix it 50/50 with the stuff they could NOT get rid of. That ended up being sludge, or the 1% of human sewage that cannot be treated at a waste water treatment plant.

For awhile, this was just fine with some farmers (not me as I do not allow sludge, but did allow ash) until the state reversed some rules and now does not allow wells (and thus houses to be placed) on land treated with this mixture.

There is a saying in farming: Beware of what is "free".