Wood recycling centre planned for Swansea

FURNITURE, decking and worktops will be made from discarded wood in Swansea if funding is provided for a new recycling centre.

Doors, bed bases, flooring and pallets could also be created from some of the 4,000 tonnes of wood which householders take to the Llansamlet household waste recycling centre every year.

It currently costs the council around £240,000 a year to dispose of this wood – and more timber is being brought in due to the felling of trees blighted by ash dieback – but grants are now available from the Welsh Government to build re-use and recycling facilities.

The authority has submitted a £98,850 bid for such a facility at Llansamlet, which is the only recycling site in Swansea which accepts wood.

Council Cabinet is being asked to accept any grant offer at a meeting on September 17. Successful bids are due to be announced next month.

The venture would create the equivalent of two full-time jobs and cost £65,000 a year to run.

The cabinet report said: “The intention is for the centre to be self-financing from product sales from the end of the first year.”

The Welsh Government wants wood recycling centres and the furniture and products made there to help protect existing forest stocks and reduce carbon emissions.

Sales of the products in Llansamlet would be at the Tip Treasures re-use shop, and also online.

The council is keen for charities to benefit from the venture, workshops and open days are proposed – and there could also be new markets for sawdust and woodchip.

If all goes to plan, the centre would be up and running next summer, according to the cabinet report.

The banning of waste wood at many recycling sites in Wales has proved difficult to explain to residents but the Welsh Government has said that recycling wood, from an environmental point of view, was challenging to regulate because of the many different grades out there.

But it does want more wood reused and recycled.