The UW is celebrated for its trees, but now they can do more than just make the UW beautiful. With the Salvage Wood Program, campus trees can become building material and even help students learn, too.
The Salvage Wood Program takes trees that have been cut down — due to construction, natural death, disease or other reasons — and turns them into usable wood for construction or woodworking. Supported by grants from the Campus Sustainability Fund, the program is a collaboration between UW Facilities’ grounds and carpentry teams.
In 2023, they gained a new partner. The Salvage Wood Program began supplying wood to students taking the furniture studio class in the College of Built Environments. Thanks to another Campus Sustainability Fund grant, Facilities and the college then established a pipeline to make the wood easily accessible and available to students for free or at a reduced cost.
Recently, the program launched an online store where people can browse and purchase the wood. This salvage wood store is available to UW students, faculty, staff and the general public.
In the video above, watch the Salvage Wood Program in action. Hear from staff, students and instructors and see the furniture created by students from campus wood.