BOISE, Idaho — A Boise company called Tree Top Recycling is making the best of the housing growth in the Treasure Valley by turning the increased amount of yard and construction waste into usable products.
The company takes lumber, pallets, scrap wood, tree, branches, bushes, grass leaves, and dirt just to name a few. Dustin Downs, the owner of Tree Top Recycling, says the company will take almost anything organic, just not metal or concrete. The process is to get it into a smaller compact form.
Once materials are screened, they are sent into a grinder to be shredded. Even if there are nails in recycled wood, for a small cost, Tree Top will take it.
“We just pull out the metal and then we take the metal to a recycling center, so even the trash we pull out, we recycle in some way,” Downs said.
Green materials are broken down to become landscape materials like bark, topsoil, or mulch, and even cattle bedding, or burning fuel to generate clean electricity. Downs said his business has been booming.
“The amount of homes being built, the amount of people coming in, if I can make a dent in saving some of that material and reusing it, that's fantastic,” he said.
Downs added, his small fee is less than what the landfill charges for people to dump garden waste.
“You can even go to the landfills too, they're too full I mean they have a chart of expected growth, and lately it’s been astronomical, because of our growth,” he said.
Downs' father created the recycling company over 25 years ago, he’s been the owner for the last eight years and has seen nothing but growth and increased demand from customers.
“With the influx of people coming in, everyone is wanting to do this, I know I'm a business owner but it’s good for everyone and it helps, we are making money but also saving the environment, and on Earth Day it can’t be better than that.”
More information on Tree Top Recycling can be found here.