Sawmill Sid Inc. are Urban Wood Specialists and are trailblazers in the Innovative, Sustainable, Social and Ecological solutions their company provides to urban wood waste. They are an award-winning family-owned company that recovers urban wood that is typically tub-ground or wood chipped and sent to dumps around the GTA. The wood comes from trees that have to come down due to disease, storms and development.
Sawmill Sid first learned of the wood waste problem in 2013 at a City of Toronto’s round table meeting for urban wood utilization. There are between 100,000 to 200,000 trees that are fallen in the City of Toronto alone. Developers, property owners and businesses who want to have their trees re-purposed, instead of being chipped and sent to the dump either use Sawmill Sid’s portable sawmilling service, bring their logs to us to be milled or buy our eco-friendly products.
Sawmill Sid now operates off of the Toronto & Region Conservation Authority’s Tree & Wood Recovery Centre. In 2016, they recovered over 6,800 cubic meters of wood waste and turned this into valuable wood products such as lumber and beams for builders, large wood slabs, lumber for furniture makers and products for the film industry. When turned into wood products instead of wood chips, this captures CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere. Last year, they carbon locked 6,800 tonnes of carbon emissions.
Sawmill Sid’s innovative approach to urban wood utilization has recently gained international recognition and the company is committed to a long-term goal of re-purposing 100% of the GTA’s wood waste. This could potentially prevent 150,000 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
This company screams sustainable communities and has made significant contributions back to each community that they work in. From 2014 to 2016, they donated wood to every high school in Simcoe County. The schools designed and built benches out of the wood, then in turn, donated these benches back to every single elementary school for “Buddy Benches”.
Sawmill Sid has also offered educational opportunities to schools including a Forestry Youth Day that was held at the Tree & Wood Recovery Centre. The day included topics on Forestry and Climate Change and live demonstrations on the sawmill.
They have won the Ontario Wood Award for promoting Ontario’s Wood, a Trustee Tribute Award from the Simcoe County District School Board and a Circle of Honour Award from the Huronia Communities Foundation. They continue to promote and educate the community on the social, economic, ecological benefits of re-purposing and the conservation of one of Canada’s best resources.
STIHL chain saws play a vital role in our company’s production, from sales to exceptional customer service “In my several years of construction and sawmilling, I’ve realized that the STIHL tool line is truly reliable in all aspects of our business”.
by Sidney Gendron
Owner & President - Sawmill Sid Inc.
www.sawmillsid.ca