Innovative Ways to Re-Use & Recycle Your Briquette Ashes

Our wood briquettes are already an environmentally-friendly choice for heating your home or cooking a summer barbecue. That’s because they’re made from recycled wood products, so not only are they making use of what would otherwise have been waste material, it also means that no new trees need to be cut down to make them. Meanwhile, with less than 20% moisture, they produce less smoke and other harmful emissions than even kiln-dried logs.

But did you know that once you’ve burned them and enjoyed their multiple benefits, you can continue to make them useful by reusing the ashes for a number of things around the home and garden?

Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting ways, but remember to wait till the ashes have cooled down before attempting to try any of them. And even then, you’d still be better off wearing gloves.

Slug and snail control

They’re the bane of many a gardener’s life. Slugs especially can wreak havoc on growing vegetables by chomping away at all the tasty green leaves before they can grow enough to feed you – which is, after all, their main purpose. There are all manner of suggestions online for the best way to ward off these garden pests, but your briquette ashes can help keep them at bay.

Because they have a high moisture content, slugs and snails avoid dry things like ash, so just spread a thin ring around the base of the plants you want to protect. The ashes are also high in alkaline, which will affect the pH of your soil – that may not be a bad thing if that’s what your soil needs (we’ll go into more detail on this shortly), but it’s best to use them only sparingly.

Soil treatment

If the soil in your garden is acidic, adding a sprinkling of your briquette ashes can help make it more productive and less prone to disease. You need to make sure that the plants you’re growing there will actually like it, though – tomatoes, roses, lavender and basil will generally benefit from their addition, but things like potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, fruit trees and rhododendrons definitely won’t. 

Grit for paths and roads

We all know that climate change is a thing we’re going to have to live with. While that will mean an overall rise in global temperatures, it could equally lead to some colder winters, so won’t mean an end to snowy and icy mornings, together with the slippery paths, drives and roads that can result. Keep your briquette ashes handy and they can be spread over treacherous surfaces to make them safe to walk and drive on.

Putting out your fire

You should never leave a fire burning when you go to bed, but if you’ve put too much fuel on and you’re ready to retire for the night, throwing ashes onto the fire can quickly put it out.

Here at KG Smith & Son, we’re leading suppliers of eco-friendly wood briquettes, together with a wide range of other smokeless fuels, across Northampton, Cambridge and Oxford, with rapid delivery also available right across the UK.

Get in touch for more details or to place your order now