Made In Chicago: From Felled Trees To Cutting Boards At NeighborWood
EVANSTON, Ill. (CBS) -- Trees that fall down in a storm usually get turned into wood chips, or firewood.
But in one Evanston garage, a craftsman is turning felled urban trees into durable cutting boards, butcher blocks and countertops.
As WBBM Newsradio's John Cody reports, Brian Post installed high-tech home electronics systems for electronic systems in his previous life. But now, he calls his NeighborWood cutting boards "a unique product of the greenest sense."
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Post believes people want to know the ZIP code of the tree that turned into the cutting board in their kitchen, so he etches it into the boards he sells.
"Six of our trees in front of our house fell one day, and I met with the forestry guys who are out there, and I'm like, 'Well, what happens to these trees?' And they said, 'Well, we wood chip them; some of the good wood would be used for firewood,'" Post said.
But Post thought there might be a better use.
"I asked if I could grab a couple of logs. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. And we made large cutting boards – originally they were 20 by 12 by about an inch and a half thick – to see what people thought about them," Post said. "I sold them all in about a week. I figured I had some sort of business possibly here."
NeighborWood partners with local municipalities, as well as colleges and universities, to acquire wood to be turned into cutting boards, and works with end-users who would otherwise receive their wood from mills or tree farms.
