130 trucks a day into Eden woodchip mill
Members of Chipstop at Bega held a four day vigil outside the Eden woodchip mill from Monday to Thursday, 15th – 19th December 2003. They documented the truck loads carted into the giant chipmill and export wharf.
Of the stream of 130 trucks a day that drove through the gates to the woodchip pile by the Eden wharf in NSW:
61% contained the trunks of trees from mature or multi-age native forests; 25% carried thinnings from regrowth native forests (some, but not many, of these may have come from hardwood plantations);
14% contained woodchips (mill ‘waste’);
88% of the trucks came from south of Eden with a daily average of 32 loads of thinnings (most from NSW), 71 loads containing trunks of mature trees (many from East Gippsland) and 11 loads of woodchips.
No waste material was observed: no butts, no heads, no branches.
That means 71 truck loads of mature trees a day were arriving at Eden from the South – many of which were likely to be from East Gippsland.
Harriet and Keith-Chipstop