Free Republic

World's largest sawdust dump is on fire 'and will burn for years' By The Siberian Times reporter 25 July 2016 Greenpeace concern as firefighters say they cannot extinguish 3 year blaze with smoke visible from space. The mountain of sawdust is the size of more than 800 Olympic swimming pools at a site in the Ust-Kutsky district of Irkutsk region. A council spokesman said: 'It is now impossible to extinguish dump with such an amount of sawdust. 'Obviously, it will keep burning for a few more years.' It has remained aflame winter and summer for around three years - and...

Home Building Drops, And Wood Waste, Too; The Manure substitute Ernie Johnson figured $100-a-barrel oil was bound to happen someday. But the 58-year-old businessman Missoula, Mont., never thought he'd see sawdust at $100 a ton. The price of sawdust has soared since 2006, up from about $25 a ton to more than $100 in some markets. Blame the housing slump: Fewer new homes mean fewer trees cut for use in construction, which leads to less sawdust and other wood waste, driving up the price. "I've never seen sawdust so hard to find. We're having to go 400 miles to get...