Locally Sourced: Wood Chips

If you are like most people, you probably don't wake up in the morning and say, "I can't wait to pull every single weed in my garden!"  Instead of pulling those weeds, and seeing many return, most gardeners would recommend placing a mulch on your flower beds.  The mulch can save you time and work as well helping to regulate the moisture content of the soil.  You can purchase wood chips from most garden and home stores as well as many big box stores. 

A better, and inexpensive alternative would be to find out if your local municipality or park district has wood chips available for residents.  If they do, all that may be required to obtain some mulch is time, a vehicle, and a shovel.  If you do not have a truck, you can use a car.  If you are using a car or SUV, be sure to place a tarp in the trunk in order to make it easier to clean out the remaining wood chips when you are finished.

On Saturday, I made several trips to the large pile of wood chips in a parking lot near city hall.  In total, I took around 24 cubic feet of wood chips.  All of it came from trees in the community which had either been knocked down in storms or from branches that were trimmed.  The amount of carbon dioxide produced shredding local branches is often far less than what is made commercially.  Commercial wood chips is often shipped from other sources, and consequently, the carbon footprint of using those wood chips is greater. 

If I had went to my local hardware store, the least expensive bag would have been $3.33 for 2 cubic feet.  The total cost for the 24 cubic feet of wood chips would have been $39.96, not including tax.  The locally sourced wood chips were completely free.

How have you used locally sourced products to reduce your carbon footprint?