Coffin Dodger

I was looking at the amount of paper and cardboard that ends up in our recycling bin and wondered if it was worth trying to turn it into fuel for our wood burning stove.

Seen those paper log making machines where you wack all your waste paper into a bucket, cover with water, leave for a few days, then squish it into a brick with the machine e.g. http://www.greenfingers.com/supersto...=LS9254D&co=fr You do have to let them dry for a few months too before burning.

Anyone do so and is it more hassle than it's worth or not? Reckon you could probably make a few bricks per week.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Doesn't exactly look very sturdy.

wiltshire_boy

Don't bother, a lot of boaters on the Canal World forum (steady!) have tried it and decided it's never worth the hassle. They take ages to dry out and burn really quickly.

HTH

David_Dickson

I gave it a try last year. An old plastic kitchen bin was scavenged from the garage and I soaked the papers in that.
The "logs" took a long time to dry thoroughly, but burned pretty well tbh.
It was all a bit of a faff, but I didnt have much else to do with my time then, so wasnt too bothered.
The machine was a flimsy piece of crap though and it didnt last. It soon developed loads of free play and before I got round to beefing it up with the welder, it disingrated completely so i just flung it out.

iirc, there was some hoo-haa about the glossy papers from magazines etc giving off toxins when used?

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

There was this exact discussion on radio 4 a few months back and if one person in the street burns junk mail it's not too bad. If everyone does it then the green houses gases would be very bad not to mention the soot given off.. Cheaper then gas but the damage it does doesn't weigh up.

David_Dickson

To be quite honest, and to risk a flaming from the eco mentals on here, but I don't give a stuff about greenhouse gases etc, I just wanted to get some free heat from things that I would otherwise chuck in the rubbish bin.

CrisPDuk

The ink & the shiny coatings on glossy magazine paper are toxic when burned.

Probably OK if you're burning it outside, possibly not so good on an indoor fire

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

What he said.

oh and the thing to do it is sh1te, broke after the second lot of bricks were made. did about 40 and kaput.

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

It's not really the Eco's it's the soot build up in your house / chimney.. It's a dirty burn.

David Lock

Went to to a barbie once where the "green" host was using these on the fire. Food tasted disgusting. dl

ANDY597

If your going to get one of these, avoid the glossy mags and stick with regular papers

Also, you can add other materials in such as sawdust which works really well

machine not the best,

Leslie

The so called greenhouse gases are such a tiny percentage of the Earth's atmosphere that their only real reason for consideration is the amount of extra taxes that they gain for our rulers!

Les

David Lock

They add up though Les. I quite accept that burning a few newspapers isn't going to melt the arctic but I do enjoy watching Murdoch burn

Did you realise that every litre of fuel burnt chucks out 2.5 kgs of CO2? That's a lot in global terms especially when you add in the rubbish that China et al are burning with their power stations and a few billion cooking stoves.

dl

Coffin Dodger

Ewww, wouldn't cook with them, as mentioned lots of nasty carcinogens. Charcoal is "green" anyway, made from the same stuff as paper

Only consider burning in a woodburner where they would get well combusted and all the smoke goes up the chimney, not into the room.

fast bloke

Our kids make them. They get left in the garage for a year to dry, then a years worth will burn on a cold weekend. I prefer a chainsaw and a big pile of trees. More fun making and more heat burning. We got the brick maker from lakeland. The kids don't put too much pressure on it (thus the drying time), but it looks like I could make one really dry brick and then try to unbend it

Swift Nick

Sounds like a fair point...