This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

What Happens After Northbrook Trees Come Down?

The village tries to recycle or reuse timber whenever possible.

Some are blasted by lightning; some come crashing down in high winds propelled by storms like those the Chicago area experienced last week. Others still die of disease, insect infestation and old age.

In Northbrook, there are more than 15,300 trees growing on parkways and other village property, with a combined insured value of approximately $47 million, according to Northbrook Forestry Supervisor Mark Lovas. And when village trees die—as many did last week—it falls to members of the Public Works department to remove and, if possible, help reincarnate them.

While it was once the policy of towns just about everywhere to dispose of trees simply by cutting them up, hauling them off and dumping them in landfills, there are now more and more ways to recycle area trees. By recycling a tree, the village saves on the cost of hauling and disposing while also reducing Northbrook’s carbon footprint, according to Village Forester Terry Cichocki. 

Find out what's happening in Northbrookwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In any given year, numerous different species of trees need to be removed from Northbrook’s public land. Local tree varieties include bitternut hickory, ash, elm, oak (Bebb oak is Northbrook’s official tree, and one of its most common oak types in the village), willow and cherry. Some of the wood is valuable and sought after. Some is not, though nearly all can be recycled for one purpose or another, be it for consumer or industrial uses.

Take cottonwood, for example, which is one of the lowest grade woods.

Find out what's happening in Northbrookwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“Cottonwood can actually be used to make pallet wood,” said Cichocki. “Most pallets are a one-time use, so the brittle nature of the wood doesn't make it a ‘bad’ wood. Also, cottonwood could be burned to make electricity, as would other weak-wooded trees like box elder, mulberry and Siberian elm.”

Meanwhile, the village’s most sought-after former trees, like oak, ash and hickory, are often used to make products like floor tile, baseball bats, and mantelpieces.

After they’re taken down, the first stops for nearly all of the village’s former trees are two areas in a corner of the Pubic Works department lot. One contains a large pile of wood chips made up mainly of tree branches that were chipped by village crews when they took down the trees. (The chips are available free to anyone to use for a variety of landscaping purposes.) The next area is used to store the often lengthy sections of tree trunks and large branches that await pickup by woodworkers, who recycle them into the aforementioned wood products, or by haulers, who take the wood elsewhere. 

“Great use of our wood!” said Cichocki.

While much of the wood can be repurposed, trees that are infested with insect pests are taken to a third party yard, where a huge machine called a tub grinder grinds them into wood mulch, she explained. When an infested tree is ground up, the insects become inactive. The process is done by businesses that have the equipment and space to make mulch, unlike the village. Cichocki also noted that Northbrook is working to secure an arrangement with Northwest Wood Products, in which the company would pick up less valuable logs for lumber to make pallets. 

Village trees that have been killed by disease also receive special treatment. According to Cichocki, they too are ground up, and the wood chips are then composted or burned so the disease does not spread to plants.

“This is also done by one of the yards that we work with for the less valuable logs, to be converted to wood mulch,” she said. “We do have to pay to haul and dispose of the diseased tree logs, though, since they are more work and the wood chips have to be processed.”

This week, there’s another type of wood to add to the roster the village has to deal with: trees and branches that came down due to last Tuesday’s violent storm. Between Monday, June 27, and Friday, July 1, the village will pick up tree debris from homeowners in the area. Residents are advised to contact Public Works at 847-272-4711 to add their trees to the pick-up list. After July 1, responsibility again falls to homeowners to remove their debris.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?