Reels and the green bin

Why a reel is not green waste

Green-bin programs are built for grass, leaves, branches and plant trimmings, which are ground into compost and mulch. Metal in that stream damages grinders and ends up in compost. A wooden reel is lumber held together with hardware: nails or staples through every plank, through-bolts with nuts and washers on heavier reels, and sometimes a steel plate around the arbor hole. Even broken into pieces, its boards are full of fasteners. Some reels are also made from treated wood, which composting programs exclude. So a reel does not belong in the green bin, whole or in parts.

What happens to recycled reel wood

Wood recyclers take clean lumber, pallets and similar wood, pull the metal with magnets, and grind the rest into mulch, landscape cover, animal bedding or biomass fuel, depending on the grade. Painted or treated wood is sorted out. A reel broken down with its bolts removed is ordinary clean scrap lumber; a whole reel is a bulky item most drop-off sites would rather not handle.

Three ways to get rid of one

• Give it away. A sound 24 to 36 inch reel is wanted by somebody for a table or a planter. Try a neighbourhood listing.
• Break it down. Remove the bolts and nails, cut the flanges up, and take the clean wood to a wood recycler or your hauler's lumber stream. Hardware goes to scrap metal.
• Have it collected. One reel or a hundred, a pickup run takes them whole. Sound ones are resold; the rest go to wood recycling, sorted by us.

Breaking one down safely

Wear gloves, eye protection and boots. Remove bolts first, loosening each nut a little at a time around the ring so the flanges come apart evenly. On nailed reels, pry the flanges off the drum with a bar from the inside. Pull or flatten every nail before you stack the boards. A circular saw will find nails you missed, so check the cut line with a magnet. For anything over 48 inches, this is a long job with heavy pieces; a pickup is usually easier.

Contractors and businesses

For a business, reels are commercial waste. A yard can put broken reels in a roll-off bin for clean wood if its hauler allows, but whole reels mostly fill a bin with air. A pickup that sorts sound from broken does better on both cost and waste. See reel recycling and the resale or recycling guide.

Plywood reels

Plywood flanges contain glue, and some recyclers treat them apart from solid lumber. Keep them in their own pile if you are breaking reels down, and mention them if you book a pickup.

Small spools from home

Hobby spools for thread, garden hose reels and extension cord reels are not what this page is about. Plastic ones go in household recycling only if your city's program lists them; most do not. Wooden hose reels follow the same rule as cable reels: wood with hardware, not yard trimmings.