Lewis Mouldings to expand for 2nd straight year thanks to its waste

A company in Weymouth, N.S.,is planning to expandfor the second year in a row to keep up with demand for its home-heating product made from waste wood.

Lewis Mouldings creates trim, made from Eastern white pine, for the housing market.

It used to sell the leftover sawdust andwood chips to paper-making mills.As those mills shut down, Lewis Moulding decidedithad to come up with another plan.

Without waste, no 'long-term future'

"The mouldings are profitable, but if we didn't sell our wastethere wouldn't be a long-term future." said Mark Wheatley, the salesmanager for Lewis Mouldings.

"We wanted to take our future intoour own hands as far as dealing with our waste."

So the company started making a product called FiberFuel.

Plans to expand

Two tonnes of wood waste is needed to create one tonne of the .9 kgcompressed bricks, which can be used as an alternative to firewoodused for home heating.

Last year's expansion sawthe company buyabiomass dryer and asecond compression machine. These "brickers"compact the wood waste under10,000tonnes of pressure.

Over the next year, the company isplanning to buy a third brickerand a packaging system.

Officials with Lewis Mouldings say there are a few reasonsfor the double digit growth, even during last winter's mild weather.

Firewood 'harder to get'

"[Firewood] is getting harder to get and people who havealways burned wood are older with this product you don't have to split and stack it" said Wheatley.

• Firewood shortages hitting parts of Nova Scotia

Lewis Mouldings is the only company in Nova Scotia that sellsthis type of product on a large scale.

It's available throughout theMaritimes and is moving into the New England market.

About 75 people work at Lewis Mouldings making both thetrim and the FiberFuel products.