Smart Ways To Reuse Circular Saw Dust [15 ways explained!]

Circular Saw Dust Collection & Uses Tips For Woodworker

If you are a woodworker or DIY enthusiast it is needless to say that a circular saw is the best friend for your every work or DIY project. Not to mention, a circular saw is a powerful tool that makes the woodworking project more convenient and productive.

But that said, you are going to produce a lot of saw dust as it cuts through the wood using a toothed blade. Likewise, It gets real messy in your workshop with a huge amount of byproduct generated every day.

While many people like to get rid of these dingy stuff, as soon as they can, you can be the differentiating one by making the proper reuse of them.

Because wood is a precious gift of nature. Even the shavings and dust of it have lots of usages.

Now, you might be wondering how this messy circular saw dust become something significant?

Don’t panic, just take a deep breath and go through this entire article, as today I will share with you the 15 smart ways to reuse your circular saw dust.

So, without wasting any time, let's jump into the business and take an in-depth look at the ways to reuse the circular saw dust.

1.Cleaning Your Floors

Saw dust has great usage when it comes to the point of cleaning floors.

Someone can easily clean his garage and workshop surface with wood shavings without the cunning dust. Just pour some water onto a saw dust pile and brush it over any concrete floor with a push broom. It removes fine grimes and dust which might go up in the air and cling to your fabrics.

Wood shavings and sawdust are highly absorbent and thus they easily soak up any liquids, blood, and butches. When it has done its job, nicely bush up and sweep away. And you are all done.

Because of the heavyweight of the substance, it won’t scatter around in the air when sweeping. For that reason, air will not get polluted when you are cleaning your floor with wood shavings.

Saw dust also alleviates the risk of slips and falls by proving some grip on the surface. Another benefit of saw dust is that it’s all-natural and eco-friendly. Click Metersawgeek.com, you will find excellent reviews of top miter saws with the best blade guards and visibility.

2.Using In The Garden

Saw dust is inexpensive and readily available and it has many helpful usages in the garden. Though it has a dire reputation of snitching nitrogen from the plants, the reality is, it supports the growth of your plants by helping your soil to improve.

If you are considering mushrooms on your own, then you can be highly benefited from sawdust. Mushrooms rely on other organic materials rather than chlorophyll for their food. Logs are perfect when it comes to the environment of nature, but in the garden, you can plant mushrooms using a mixture of sawdust and woodchips. Thus you can cultivate mushrooms quite decently using waste materials like wood shavings.

To improve the texture and organic matter of your soil, add some sawdust in it. Saw dust works great in moist, heavy soils as it is slow in the decomposing cycle. Using this simple technique you can increase the fertility of your soil which will result in more yields from your plants.

Moreover, saw dust can be used in compost production.  It can be added in alternating layers to balance out green materials like clipping grass and food in waste. The transformation of raw saw dust into finished compost takes around one year. Compost made using saw dust is more eco-friendly and beneficial for plants.

Plants like blueberries, strawberries, conifers, and rhododendrons are acid-loving and saw dust is acidifying to the soil. Thus saw dust helps to grow these plants properly which will increase the return from your garden.

3.Fill the Holes

Small holes or gashes in furniture are always annoying for the homeowners. It takes to spend money on buying the materials and for tinkering purposes. Having said that, if your wooden furniture and walls have gashes or treenail holes, sawdust and glue can be your go for a solution. Because you can be benefitted by using your sawdust to fill those holes and gashes in no time.

Mix glue and sawdust until the thickness is fairly dense and you will get the perfect DIY filter. Make sure that you grind your saw dust into a fine, floor like firmness to get the best result.

Saw dust solidifies the glue, so you don’t have gross stains going down the wall and it also suits the color of the wood, so the patch isn’t too visible. Let the blend to dry and then level the surface using sandpaper. So next time when you see any holes in your wooden stuff, don't just run into the shop rather check out whether you can fix them yourself using saw dust and save a good amount of penny.

4.Demolish Weeds

There could be many annoying plants in your garden. We refer to them as weeds that are detrimental to our plants in the garden. That way they need to be removed in order to keep the garden clean and healthy.

Wood shavings or in order words sawdust are one of the most economical components to use in the garden to get rid of these weeds.

But note that there are different types of wood shavings available, some are beneficial, while some are harmful to the plants. For instance, walnuts are toxic for most of the plants in your garden. So to see the result, you can sprinkle wood shavings anywhere you want and get rid of most of the disturbing plants from the garden.

To do this, however, you should be mindful of the fact and stay on the safer side by carrying out a little research before using saw dust in the garden. It will help you to determine which saw dust to use and for which purpose.

5.Kitty Litter

If you have pets like cats and rabbits you definitely purchase commercial kitty litter frequently. Saw dust can be a good alternative for this. It will save your pocket and the fact that saw dust is easily available, you aren't in any hassle to get it.

Saw dust absorbs the mess fast that your cat makes regularly which is quite a good reason to use wood shavings. Moreover saw dust leave a wood scent which is quite pleasing for the cat. Litters created from wood shavings are easy to handle and compostable which are great for the soil in your garden.

Moreover, wood shavings are compostable and biodegradable, which makes them eco-friendly.

Another great thing about using saw dust litter is that it is lightweight which makes it very easy to clean and comfortable. Apart from that cats are more comfortable with wood pellets than commercial litter purchased from the store.

6.Use as Pet and Livestock Bedding

Usually, bedding for the pets and livestock should be absorbent, clean and pleasant. By using organic materials ammonia volatilization can be decreased, which by turn will improve the air in the housing facility.

If you have got pets and livestock, you may be using paper bedding for them. The problem is, it costs a good amount of money to purchase paper bedding. Apart from that, they aren’t that durable , that's why you have to restore them on a regular basis. Wood shavings, on the other hand, are cheap and easy to get.

Another good thing about dust and wood shavings bed is that they are not likely to get infected by harmful bacteria. For this instance, it is advised to use clean and dry saw dust while making a bed for pets to ensure cleanliness and absorbability.

You can also pump up your pet bed by putting together the saw dust to the fiberfill. While using wood shaving for bedding, use only aspen shavings.

Avoid using other shavings like pine, softwood or cedar as they might harm your pet. If you are not sure about what kinds of wood shavings you are using, ask someone knowledgeable, otherwise avoid this to be safe from any unusual risk.

7.Make a Fire Starter

Many of us aren’t fire people and often struggle to start or keep the fire going. When the weather condition is bad, things get worse. When rains fall, dry things like leaves, logs get weight, you can use sawdust and wood shavings to make a fire starter instead of going to shop and buy fire stuff.

Make sure that you have got sawdust, old candles, muffin tin and double boiler close to your hand. Then In a muffin tin, put all your saw dust and melt your unused or old candles in a double boiler. While melting the wax, make sure to keep the heat a bit low so that it liquefies gently.

There are some people who use pellet stoves and fireplaces as supporting warmth source. While the remaining wood shavings help to keep the home fire burning, you should be careful about the fact that saw dust can take a pile of it to feed the fire as they burn quickly.

Now that you have melted all your old candles, you need to pour them in your wood shavings. Then take your time to let them cool down for an hour or two. Finally, store this fire starter in a safe place for later use.

8.Hand Cleaner

Saw dust can be a great hand cleaning tool particularly after doing filthy work. In such a case, your hands will get dirty with mud, grease, liquids, oils, etc. and saw dust could be your easy solution to get them cleaned.

For this, you can produce excellent hand cleaner by mixing sawdust with soap, detergent or other light cleaners.

Usually, after messing up with oily stuff, it is difficult to remove oiliness from hand with just normal water and soap. What you can do is to wash your hand with wood chips properly and use water and soap after that. The great thing saw dust will do is they will take away the bad odor of oil from your hand after the wash.

So why should someone miss the opportunity of using wood shavings and other stuff at low cost to clean hands while other washers charge money.

9.Make a Mulch

It’s a popular practice to mulch using saw dust. Due to the fact that saw dust is acidic, it’s a great choice for acid-loving plants such as blueberries and rhododendrons.

Using saw dust is a wise idea as they are economical. Some people may think that saw dust is harmful to plants. But the reality is different. Saw dust requires nitrogen to decompose, and due to this, it pulls in nitrogen from the soil and plants root. This might make your plants get weaker.

Taking simple precautionary steps can easily solve this problem. Just mix nitrogen with saw dust before mulching in your garden. You can mix 1 pound of genuine nitrogen with 50 pounds of mulch before using it in your garden and then enjoy the great benefit of it.

10.Compress into Firebricks

You can burn your wood shavings directly to generate fire. But the problem, in that case, is that those saw dust will make a lot of smoke which you won’t like to see. Another problem is that as wood shavings are very light, they burn down very quickly.

An easy solution to this is, making firebricks using your wood shavings. You can produce fire bricks only using tools available to your hand.

Take a bucket and fill it with saw dust halfway. Then fill the other half with water and let the sawdust soak all the water. Then prepare blocks using the mixture and let it get dry in the sun.

Depending on the weather, the temperature may vary to get the firebricks prepared. After being prepared, keep your firebricks in a safe place so that it doesn’t get wet if rain falls.

11.Use in Packaging

When packaging products, we buy protective padding and other materials to fill empty gaps to stop moving things around. Surprisingly, we can use wood shavings instead of purchasing materials. And thus, it can save us a few of our money bags.

Saw dust can help your fragile products like food, bottles, and handicrafts not to be broken. While using wood shavings in packaging, don’t forget to protect glass and screens from scratching. So why you use your extra money to purchase things to make packaging perfect, when you can use your wasted wood shaving in your packaging process.

It’s pleasant and specially matched to packaging something you have made yourself. One of the amazing benefits of using wood shavings in packaging is that they are 100% reusable and recyclable for being the natural origin. Apart from that, they are highly elegant and resistant to moisture.

12.Be Crafty

Those who love crafts saw dust can be easy materials to produce amazing crafts themselves. Saw dust is low priced and easily accessible materials for the hobbyist.

You can make fake snow by mixing sawdust with white Paints and make your holiday more delightful. You can mix sawdust with blue and green paint and pass to mimic grass. Other than that, you can create custom made pin cushions using wood shavings materials.

Indeed you can produce lots of things using saw dust and your intellect which will surely satisfy your hobbies. You will make some money by selling the crafts you have made with wood cavities apart from fulfilling your hobby.

13.Traction in Snow and Ice

There are lots of places where the winter season remains for a longer period throughout the year. And if you are already living in one of those areas you may already know that it gets really slippery outside your home where snow falls capitalize. Consequently, moving with vehicles and shoes gets risky.

Saw dust can be an easy solution to get rid of these slippery problems. Just Sprinkle sawdust and wood chips on icy and snowy areas and you will definitely get more grip than before as wood shavings will give extra clutches to the surfaces.

You can use saw dust in other muddy, slippery places too at any season to get extra traction from the surface. Make sure you sprinkle a bunch of sawdust in slippery and muddy places and enjoy the benefit. Homeowners can use wood shavings in their large gardens to make a nice pathway too.

14.Burn Sawdust and Wood Shavings to Generate Fuel

Someone can use sawdust and wood shavings for fueling purposes. You can use saw dust as a heating tool in small stoves. To make the steam dry, use saw dust in your boiler.

In winter sawdust is used around the world burning to produce fire or keep it going. You can use sawdust and wood shavings in your firebox for meat smoker to add some extra flavor.

Saw dust can be compressed into empty milk cartons and later on, they can be burned like fire logs. Saw dust can also be used as a tinder instead of a newspaper to get the kindling going. Scraps won’t burn for a long time if they aren’t big sized. Air gets around them quickly and that is why they don’t last long. Use tiny wood chips to get the stove heated fast or generate small fire.

15.Clean Spills

While conducting any painting projects or any other crafting work, it’s quite common that you may knock over your tin of paints. You don’t need to get worried a lot if you have a stock of saw dust in your store.

You can solve the mess of your painting or craft with the clutter of your woodwork. Just shower some saw dust over the spills and let it drench, as it soaks up paints and oil very well.

Because of the fact that saw dust is highly absorbent, it will quickly soak up most of your spills. Now mop the saw dust a few times using a stiff broom so that it can absorb the whole liquid. Now pick up those saw dust in a garbage bag and get them to the dustbin. Degreaser might be needed to get rid of oily stuff, but wood shavings should complete the bulk work.

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So, there it is!

Described here in this article are the 15 most amazing ways to reuse your circular saw dust. It is understandable that sometimes you get annoyed with ton of sawdust as cleaning this heavy substance is always an undesired work to do. But we can reuse and work out to upscale many of the bypassed products if we get the know-how. And saw dust and wood shavings are no different.

Final Verdict

There are many people around the world who produce a lot of valuable things only recycling and reusing wasted materials. There is nothing wrong if you become one of them as it will not lose you anything rather than benefiting you greatly.

Another great thing about waste materials is that they are inexpensive and easy to get. If you use your brain, then you can perform many significant things using them.

Materials like wood shavings and sawdust are wasted in great amounts regularly. But instead of throwing them in the garbage, a little use of the common sense definitely can bring great value to our daily life. That is the main verdict while it comes to the point of using any wasted stuff.

I hope this article will broaden your outlook about saw dust and guide you towards the ways to reuse your circular saw dust in different cases to generate significant outcomes. Every point discussed above is considerable and practical.

So, I believe after going through this article you will never throw away your wood shavings and circular saw dust to the dustbin again as you can now sense that they are worth the reuse and could help you out to produce things that are really valuable.