Companies Make Scrap Wood Available To Public For Gathering

If scrap wood is what you’re looking for, some Valley businesses have plenty to share - for free.

Within Spokane Industrial Park, two companies haul out their scrap for wood seekers. Many people use the small pieces of wood as kindling. (Just east of the park’s main office on Sullivan Road is a massive map detailing the location of the businesses.)

Every day, workers at Huntwood Industries, a kitchen cabinet manufacturer, lug five or six 55-gallon drums loaded with wood to the side of their building. The company has given away its scrap for eight years.

“We do 45 kitchens a day. We have a lot of wood,” said Ken White, purchasing manager. “People can come out here and get as much as they want.”

In fact, White said, people come to his warehouse yearround to collect a winter’s stash of oak, maple, cherry or hickory wood. “Some start real early,” he said.

Looking for cedar or pine? Go to Apollo Spas, a hot tub manufacturer. Each day a new cord of scrap is added to a growing pile of wood, said supervisor Miko Vihstadt.

There pallets of wood scraps, some jagged and broken, boxes and boxes full of kindling and odd pieces of firewood ready for the taking.

“It’s just stuff we can’t use any longer,” said Vihstadt. The company started the freebie habit four years ago when it moved into the park, he said.

Some of the businesses at Industrial Park that produce scrap find other uses for the wood, making the most of what they’ve purchased.

, DataTimes