How We Approach the Ethics of Wood Chips

[@kingdomentrepreneur1]

Thanks for your thoughtful consideration on this matter. I’m with you in this. Our local electric utility company has been taking out trees in our forests for a couple of years now. My property is a chip drop site. It saves them long fossil and diesel trips to dump chips and my little organic food forest /homestead is reaping the benefits of resources that have already been harvested and is able to put them to good use and pay a bit back to planet earth so we still have a place to boogie. 💚🌎

[@lallyluckfarm]

It's great that you've been able to become a known resource for those groups and have a productive use for the chips!

[@buckledealer]

I know your heart is in the right place, but I think the obsession with carbon and fossil fuels is keeping you and many other smart and contentious people from having maximum positive impact on the world. I would suggest looking into 2 things: the fact that plants start dying when CO2 is at 150ppm and the fact that our climate has actually been unusually stable for the past 12,000 years or so. Respectfully, I think learning about these topics will open your mind and allow you to escape the CO2 obsession.

[@eugenetswong]

Reducing the long term consumption of fossil fuels is the correct perspective. Thank you! That helps me.

[@lallyluckfarm]

I'm glad you found this helpful!

[@geoffreymiller2608]

Well thought out. Thanks.

[@lallyluckfarm]

You're very welcome, thanks for watching!

[@formidableflora5951]

We've been fortunate to acquire all our chips from our own property and the immediate neighborhood, which--as forest cover types go--means it's heavily white pine. I'd rather have hyper-local softwood chips than hardwood chips with extra mileage. The same goes for leaf bag collection--one year we invited the immediate neighbors to dump their leaves/needles/grass clippings in a corralled area on our property if they were only going to dispose of them anyway; we ended up with plenty. You've opened an important topic here, but even my husband and I don't see eye-to-eye on where to draw the line on fossil fuel usage.

[@lallyluckfarm]

It's a tricky topic to navigate for oneself, let alone as a conversation of contrasting opinions between two or more people. In my efforts to be open minded about it, and to avoid yucking someone's yum, I've been using a scale of enthusiasm as it were. Being less or more enthusiastic about a use case helps me avoid value judgement, and (I think) makes it easier to offer thoughts on ways to improve and iterate in the future.

[@formidableflora5951]

I'm pretty enthusiastic about your "scale of enthusiasm," lol. I sincerely appreciate how you offer constructive suggestions in a kind, respectful manner instead of fueling further divisiveness.

[@rodeleon2875]

wood chips are good for the soil. responsible fossil fuel use is necessary for modern life. renewable energy as a supplement. don't over think it.

[@lallyluckfarm]

💕 great advice. I'm often by myself with my thoughts and can end up getting into the weeds

[@salcorbit6330]

I grow nutrient rich food in quantity mostly because of the wood chip miracle. And sourcing wood chips locally means I have more control of what ultimately ends up in my body. I know my batch of wood chips isn’t contaminating my property with material from questionable sources which might have treated timbers or city trees (which soak and store chemically harmful runoff) in the mix. As a principle, salvaging quality materials and developing relationships saves on fossil fuels, sure, but it’s also just good economic and personal health sense (which I think is a more convincing argument for the most possible people).

[@lallyluckfarm]

I agree, and the reasons for using chips you've listed are some of ours as well. To your last point: it seems easy, in my experience, to find videos that discuss the benefits of wood chip gardening (or podcasts or written works). The same feels true for sources discussing *how* they go about collecting them - I've made a few myself. Many of them go into the personal impacts, such as the increased vigor of the plants or the greater nutrient density of the food produced, but it felt worthwhile to address some of the ways this practice could positively impact the commons with this video.

[@salcorbit6330]

I hope my comment didn’t come across as dismissive. Quite the contrary, I think your explanation was a good one. I interpreted the video as being directed to those people out there who only see the use of wood chips as profiting from destructive practices. But as we know, tree services will continue to exist, so from a green perspective minimizing then negating the impact of such practices is better than letting the process go on without local interventions. At least that’s what I got from the video, and hopefully it reaches those who, rightfully so, want to preserve our forests but who may not have thought about it this way. I have to say though, this conversation about the ethics of using wood chips will make little sense to a lot people, outside the targeted audience, who I see as more of a minority of a minority on environmental issues and permaculture.

[@lallyluckfarm]

Not at all! Your comment is wonderful and I appreciate the time and thought that went into it! I agree that this topic might be a little esoteric, but that serves to distinguish it (imo) from other chip videos. Sometimes they feel a little "101" and this felt more like the voluntary seminar on Saturday.

[@nchestercountynews4955]

I'm up to 50+ chip drops over three years, I use them to make my own bio-char (charged), back to eden garden, pathways, tree surrounds, and mulching with (uria, duckweed, grass clippings), also making Humanure. Lots of ash trees coming down here due to the emerald ash bore. When you hear the chipper in the distance, leave them your cell number, and location.

[@lallyluckfarm]

I'm glad to hear that chipdrop has been working for you! Your last sentence is how we've made most of our drops happen, but we've also been fortunate that several of our neighbors have directed their hired crews to drop the chips for us. Once they know they can drop just about any time we get to see them when they're working in the area.

[@busker153]

Well, no argument here. I could not possibly argue, as I totally missed what constituted, "the ethics of wood chips."

[@elkhunter307]

Ethics of wood chips??? Next.

[@lallyluckfarm]

How we source the materials that come onto our site is something I think about, but I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea

[@lamprou]

Humm... I got the feeling one of the concerns might be the possibility of being taxed on receiving goods (wood chips) in exchange for the service of using your land as a dump site.

[@lallyluckfarm]

This hasn't been an issue for us, though it's absolutely worth checking the regulations in your area. In our conversations with our town's Department of Public Works there were no forms or formal statements necessary for receiving them, and the accountant we go to didn't advise us of any state or federal tax implications in this regard. It might be different if we were reselling the mulch like the other space in town does, or if there were a tax deduction or other setup regarding gifts or charitable donations being claimed.

[@jimboyne9742]

bad sound

[@mikeables]

Can't hear you and I am not turning my sound all the way up because the next video or commercial will be so loud my cat will jump straight up and hit the ceiling fan and I will be covered in blood again.

[@lallyluckfarm]

Sorry about that, here's a Tl;dr We do a lot of outreach to make it possible for us to get as many wood chips as we do, and we try our hardest to not add additional fossil fuel usage in order to get them. Folks using local wood chips is great, and doing it in a way that strengthens local economies and reduces further processing (and more fossil fuel burning) is even better.

[@AdamBechtol]

thx for the tl;dr@@lallyluckfarm

[@Johnnosmitho]

Can you film and upload that, sounds like a good comedy skit. Your cat could be a star.

[@Johnnosmitho]

Maybe turn the fan off while watching this woodchip vid, just in case.

[@billsalcido7878]

Why avoid fossil fuel usage?

[@JosephANagyJr]

Your audio levels are way too low.

[@lallyluckfarm]

Noted, and something I'm working on

[@sirsmilealot5458]

Don’t get something and then whine about it.