28 – August 2012, Australian Forests & Timber News
SAWMILLING
Nothing goes to waste in this sawmill By Steve Kelly
F
IVE LOCAL families at the heart of a sawmill business in Barwite near Mansfield are determined to continue making inroads into recycling waste timber. Dieter and Pam Buchholz, trading as Dieters Firewood
Service and Lucas Mill, started the business in 1990 with its sawmilling operations running since 2001. The mill provides products and services such as timber for about eight regular builders, five fencing contractors, furniture makers of tables and bench tops, along with farmers.
However, it’s their focus on reducing their carbon footprint that’s making a real difference. Joe Kirley of Barwite’s Bargain Bulk Firewood and Timber Supplies, who with wife, Alicia, joined Dieter and Pam in 2006, said the logs they use are salvaged because they don’t fit the size specifications of industrial mills.
He said they’re turning something that would have been wasted completely into 100% reusable product. Mansfield Consulting Services principal, Phil Taylor, who has been working with the operators on the planning permit, said their perspective to salvage materials that would have gone to waste is a credit to them. He said the portable sawmill operators during the day-to-day
workings were conscious of waste, with every scrap now taken away and recycled. Another three men are also employed by the mill, providing five families - including 11 children - with their livelihoods. Other work sawmill staff carry out is the removal of dangerous trees in the district. The proprietors have also facilitated community tours of the site for organisations such as retirement village residents.
Sawmill back on track once again
J oe Kirley (left) and Dieter Buchholz have been making good use of timber that doesn’t fit the specifications of industrial mills.
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MOST COUNTRY centres find it hard to recover from business closures, especially when the business employees a fair chunk of the available workforce. That was the case at Deanmill (near Manjimup) when Gunns closed its jarrah sawmill in February 2011. Fast forward a little over 12 months and there’s a sense of confidence once again in the community. The mill is working again. Western Australian-based Auswest took over the mill in December … “we acquired the Gunns assets they had remaining in WA,” says Gary Addison, Auswest managing director and one of the founders of the company. “In mid-January this year we actually started to put a few logs through the mill at Deanmill, gradually recommissioning it because it had been closed for over 12 months. “Gunns closed it down and made all the workers redundant. Once that happened it was also the death knell for the Manjimup Processing Centre that we also acquired. That was quickly running out of timber to process so with the closure of the mill 12 months down the track the MPC was in danger of closing as well,” he said. Basically, it was a tandem working arrangement with the sawmill supplying feedstock for the processing centre to dry and machine. {Auswest also has a fairly large karri sawmill at Pemberton that is now also providing feedstock into the MPC.} Back at the Deanmill site and Auswest put in a third resaw line and fortunes started to change. Deanmill employs 42 and Auswest has been able to maintain a workforce of 44 at the processing centre. “That means secure jobs for 86 people in the district.” “Our plan is that about 60% of the sawmill output will go into value adding which will be prime material, about 25% into structural and 15% into lower grade product material,” Addison said. Like any major business, every effort is made to ensure everything is utilized and even the sawmill residue goes to Simcoa (a silicon producer). “They like the jarrah because of its low ash output,” Addison says. The mill sources native re-growth timber from the southern forest area, from Bridgetown to past Pemberton, and Addison believes the timber industry is supporting an environmental gain. “While we’re harvesting trees, we’re also re-planting tree,” he says. “It’s a sustainable industry.” Despite all the positives, the Auswest plan has received a belting from the WA Forest Alliance which claims the community should look for more sustainable alternatives to harvesting native forests, like tourism and agriculture. “We’re not stopping tourism by the activities we undertake,” Addison said. “In fact, we probably add to tourism through forestry road construction and those types of things. I think it goes hand in hand. It’s not a case of one or the other. “If you don’t have one you probably don’t have the other. “If these forests are left and neglected then forestry roads go and before you know it the public can’t access these logging-use type areas. “It’s the same as what is happening in Tasmania now. You had Gunns maintaining roads and so forth and all of a sudden they’ve stopped and the Councils can’t afford to do it themselves so the roads close down,” Addison said. Auswest started back in 1996 as a private company with three shareholders and acquired a small mill in Busselton. Back in those early days Auswest was processing about 15000 to 20000 cubic metres of karri logs. Now, just in hardwood, Auswest processes about 140,000 cubic metres of logs plus a smaller pine mill that processes about 60,000 cubic metres in Fishwyck (ACT).