Thrifty spirit burning bright as woodworker puts waste to work

Offcuts and seconds of this greenheart timber are used by a near neighbour of Martin for another traditional, but smaller product – eight-inch long bale skewers for the wool industry. What is left over after that – the waste from the factory floor and sawdust Martin is now collecting and compressing into small briquettes for the growing domestic wood burner market.

A Cleckheaton woodworker and speciality timber merchant, Martin regularly collects half-tonne loads of greenheart dust and shavings from the bale skewer factory to blend with waste from his own operation and from customers and neighbouring businesses. The mix is sucked into a German machine to make briquettes which burn with a surprisingly intense heat.

"One man was paying for his bin to be emptied every month, now he saves money and I make money," he says. "It's a win-win situation." The market for greenheart is buoyant – unlike the wood itself, which is so dense it sinks in water. It is grown almost exclusively in Guyana, on the northeastern coast of South America, with smaller stands bordering Guyana in Surinam, Venezuela and Brazil. The land, owned by the government and administered and managed by the Guyana Forestry Commission, was set up by and modelled upon the British Forestry Commission when Guyana was British Guyana. It is carefully managed, with strict rules about harvesting.

It's a sign of the times that Mr Larkin's neighbour is now Britain's sole manufacturer of wool bale skewers. The decline of wool manufacturing means he now supplies only a handful of customers but he has become an important link in the chain of recycling. In this respect, Cleckheaton is going back to its roots. The town is no stranger to thriftiness. "We've been recycling here for years," says Martin. "Industries have come and gone but the market for wood fuel is increasing at an alarming rate and it's likely to carry on growing.

"Wood recycling solves our waste and fuel issues in one fell swoop. It's bringing manufacturing jobs to Cleckheaton and helping the town become more self-sufficient. Our industrial heritage has riches to offer. We should all try to live a bit more like previous generations in terms of the amount of waste we produce. They knew the value of materials then. Recycling is where the new world meets the old."