A Philly-brand 2x4? City plans to start milling lumber at Fairmount recycling center by next year.

Workers for the city of Philadelphia lug 1,966 tons of logs, fallen trees, and leaves each year to the city’s Fairmount Park Organic Recycling Center. Add to that another 1,255 tons of similar material that get brought in by the public.

That’s a lot of wasted wood, and most of it gets churned into low-value wood chips or mulch. In fact, more wood waste arrives at the yard than the city can handle, with some of that just accumulating in piles.

Now, the city plans to ramp up a full-scale milling operation that will turn that debris into high-quality lumber, such as 2x4s, to be sold on the open market by next spring.

“Due to the intensity and frequency of weather events, our aging forests, and attacks by invasive species, we just have to be more responsive and be more efficient in the way we manage our wood waste,” said Marc Wilken, director of business development for the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Wilken said officials have been studying the lumber industry and its markets for several years to find ways of achieving that efficiency.

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Now Parks and Rec has $277,000 from the city budget and a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Forest Service to launch what’s dubbed the Philadelphia Reforestation Hub. The money will be used to purchase equipment, such as a sawmill and log splitter, as well as to recruit, train, and hire staff.

“We do believe that we can generate enough proceeds to reinvest in our TreePhilly program,” Wilken said. “We’re hoping 15% of proceeds can go toward helping supplement TreePhilly, plantings, and forest management.” TreePhilly, run by Parks and Rec and the Fairmount Park Conservancy, hosts tree giveaways for residents.

Currently, residents dump leaves and wood debris at the recycling center for free and are allowed to take 30 gallons of compost from the site for free. Contractors pay a fee to dump wood debris there. The Streets Department also brings vegetative waste to the site, as does Parks and Rec.

About 20% of all wood waste consists of logs that have the potential to be turned into higher-value products. For example, a consultant for Parks and Rec found that low-quality products, such as wood chips, sell for about $12 a ton. High-quality lumber is valued at $5,000 a ton.

As of now, Philadelphia produces no high-value products. A full-time milling operation would change that by making lumber in demand for construction. It would employ up to eight people. Construction for the milling barn would start within the “next few weeks,” Wilken said.

The current value of waste collected at the recycling center is estimated at $250,000 a year, according to the consultant Quantified Ventures. But it could be as high as $678,000.

Parks and Rec has a temporary milling operation now at the site with PowerCorpsPHL, a program that trains and employs people in the city 18 to 28 years old. The group uses portable equipment to produce some products at the site such as chess tables, playground benches, and planting beds. The city also contracts with a private sawyer who comes to the site on occasion to help with pilot millings.

Under a new arrangement, PowerCorpsPHL will expand the operation into a full-time venture with Cambium Carbon, a private start-up, as its partner.

PowerCorpsPHL is an AmeriCorps program that supports environmental programs in the city, as well as youth violence prevention and workforce development. Cambium Carbon works with cities to prevent fallen trees from going into landfills by finding markets for wood products.

Cambium Carbon will establish the supply chain and markets for products turned out by PowerCorpsPHL at the new Philadelphia mill. Most of the revenue from milling would go to PowerCorpsPHL and some to Parks and Rec for TreePhilly. Cambium Carbon would also make revenue from sales of the lumber.

Wilken said the city saves money by not having to use staff and machinery to grind and process the waste wood.

Marisa Repka, who cofounded Cambium Carbon in 2020, said she and a partner got the idea for their company while graduate students at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. They saw the potential for harvesting urban wood and carbon capture. Although Cambium Carbon has worked with the city of Baltimore and private clients, Philadelphia will be a pilot program because of its expected size.

“We have about 36 million trees that fall in U.S. cities each year,” Repka said, “and a lot of that material currently is either mulched, goes to a landfill, or used as firewood, which releases stored carbon back into the atmosphere. So by making durable wood products, you’re actually sequestering carbon dioxide.”