Turn Junk Mail into Bio Fuel Briquettes | Use in the fire pit, chiminea, camp fire | Eco friendly 

A mate used to do something similar. He used to make paper and hardwood sawdust "Logs" for his workshop log burner. He had a hobby woodworking shop, so the sawdust was a waste product, and to supplement all the junk mail, cardboard boxes and packaging he kept, he'd also sometimes grab a handful of any free local newspapers he'd see while out and about. He used a length of 4" cast iron pipe that he drilled full of tiny holes..... Literally THOUSANDS of them ! it must have took him at least a week of evenings ! There was a blanking end cap screwed on one end, then a ruddy great home turned close fitting metal washer as the plunger. To clamp it he used a length of chunky "All thread", some silicon hose, a piece of thick walled steel pipe, and a handful of long coupler nuts (To have more thread engagement). The all thread went through a hole in the middle of the end cap, and the first two coupler nuts were fitted together as jam nuts, He then slid the silicon hose over the threads, filled the pipe with pulp, dropped the large washer and pipe over the thread, and then the second coupler nut was screwed on. Then he'd just tighten the top coupler nut in his bench vice, and crank the bottom jam nut as hard as he could with a cheap air impact gun to squeeze out the water. The steel pipe was there so he didn't have to grope about down in the big pipe with a spanner, and the reason for the silicon hose over the threads was because it made it easy to pull the all thread back out, then he could tug on one end the hose to make it stretch, so like a rubber band, it would shrink in profile and pop out easily, and the hole down the middle of the logs made them dry out a lot quicker. Apparently the wet logs would sometimes be a bit of a pain to get back out of the tube, but he found that if he left the whole thing on top of his log burner to dry for a couple hours they'd usually drop straight out afterwards. The logs were around 4x12" when pressed, and even with the centre hole, took MONTHS in his warm workshop to fully dry out, but they were made out of materials that had either cost him nothing, or would have cost him time or money to get rid of, and they'd burn for something like 45 minutes to an hour each, so he was happy to put in the little bit of effort through the summer months to have free heating through winter. The only negative in this whole thing was that he had a pair of blue plastic 60L drums behind the workshop, and would leave the water and paper in them to pretty much pulp down by itself for a couple weeks (No real mixing was needed after this time). If he was really busy during hot summers, the stuff might be in there a month or two, and it would occasionally start to........ for want of a better word, "Ferment". The smell when he'd finally took the bulging lid off was something vicious on the nose ! :D

Gosh wow I never knew we could make them this is a definite keeper and will share this too. How clever of you I believe you are the first YTer that have taken the trouble to do this tutorial. Thank you so much

This is amazing - you’re going to get a lot of views for this one! I actually buy the compressed briquettes for my wood burner by the pallet but they’re expensive so I mix them with normal logs. I’m not sure how eco it is to be burning glossy paper with the ink etc but it’s better than a landfill presumably. I tend to just throw my junk mail in the wood burner anyway.

brilliant

That looks very interesting and practical.

Thank you for sharing

bet you are loving this ingenious hack now!!

Thanks a lot

Well done, thanks for sharing.Cheers.

Very clever idea and method! Thank you for taking the time to make the video and share!

Great job! I’ll get one made for this summer!

first vid I have seen that actually uses a lid for mixing good thinking

Happy to subscribe.

What an ingenious idea. Have you tried making mini logs? I'd leave out the washers that separate the briquettes. They would be thin logs, but would dry faster than some of the larger, thicker ones I've seen made. Just an thought!! Thanks for your video.

ever heard of a no circulars sign to put on the mail slot

Can you use these instead of the firefighters to help start a hardwood fire in your pizza oven. Thinking of trying to build one over the next few months but build in a counter and grill space as well. An outdoor kitchen with pizza oven and gas barbecue built-in. Should hopefully be barbecue heaven. Also for the commissioning of a pizza oven, how would you do the build up with hard wood from small fire to big fire?

nice idea

Interesting, but don’t those glossing junk mail ads have a lot of toxic fire retardant chemicals?

How do you dry these out? Could I dry them inside? It's very wet here lol

Would shredding the paper before pulping negate the need to use the paddle mixer?

:) Who, in these days, gets so much junkmail? :)

paper should not be incinerated for recycling !!!