Although the logging has ended, there will be another round of forest clearing, which is called the Great Clearing. Sheng Xiping is in charge of production scheduling, so he has to take care of all these tasks.

"Uncle Zheng, I always felt that our old Qing Dynasty way of doing things was not good."

"So much waste material, it's such a waste to just burn it all or bury it." Sheng Xiping tidied up the documents in his hand and went to find Zheng Xianyong.

Zheng Xianyong was busy too, but upon hearing this, he looked up and glanced at Sheng Xiping. "Then what do you think is a reasonable way to do it?"

In fact, the forest farm also has this problem. A lot of abandoned timber and branches are good wood, but for various reasons, they have been left in the logging area.

Once the logging season is over, all kinds of machinery are taken down from the mountains, and the timber cannot be transported out. In order to pass the inspections from above, some measures have to be taken.

If these discarded materials can be effectively utilized, it could be a considerable source of income.

"Uncle, our forest farm has about seventy or eighty workers, right? The logging season is over this year, so what are we going to do with these people?"

The collective economy is different from the state-owned enterprise workforce. The state-owned enterprise workforce has an iron rice bowl, with food and supplies provided, and is supervised by the state. Whether there is work or not, the salary is paid.

However, the collective is a subordinate unit of the forest farm, with independent accounting and responsibility for its own profits and losses.

In the past two years, when there were fewer workers in large collective enterprises, it was manageable that they could be assigned to work in the mountains with the state-owned enterprises.

A large number of people were recruited before the new year, and now the number of forestry workers is more than the quota. We must find another way to help these workers from the collective.

"Come, come, sit down, let's have a good chat." Zheng Xianyong waved his hand, gesturing for Sheng Xiping to sit down.

"Uncle, this is what I'm thinking: could we expand the sawmill in our forest farm and turn it into a timber processing plant to process all kinds of timber?"

The workers in the collective farms were mostly men, so these men could be sent up the mountain to collect fallen trees, loose timber, and abandoned materials for secondary processing and utilization.

I have a good relationship with the purchasing manager of a furniture factory in the south. I can use him to connect with sales channels and try to turn these unwanted items into valuable resources. This will also help solve the survival problems of the workers in the collective farms.

Sheng Xiping had been thinking about this for quite some time.

Timber reserves in the mountains are limited. At the current rate of logging, it is estimated that in just a few years, clear-cut forests will become increasingly scarce.

To enhance the utilization value of forest land, comprehensive utilization should be considered.

Previously, small-diameter timber in clear-cutting areas was treated as branches, but many of them could actually be used, such as wagon posts and seaweed stakes.

The Forestry Bureau has a makeshift paper mill that can only produce corrugated paper for cardboard boxes. In the past, they used leftover materials from lumber mills and other processing plants to make paper.

Didn't the provincial leaders come down to inspect the factory a while ago? The paper mill received praise from the leaders, who said it had great potential, so the bureau plans to expand production, but there isn't enough raw material.

"Uncle, the paper mill in the bureau is short of raw materials. I heard that our bureau has acquired a few chippers. Why don't we get one and install it on the tractor?"

Those branches and wood can be shredded by a chipper and then loaded onto trucks and sent to the paper mill.

Don't underestimate these seemingly small profits; they add up to a considerable amount over time.

We need to find a way out for those workers in the collective farms, otherwise where will their wages come from?

In his past life, Sheng Xiping dealt in timber and ran a timber processing plant; these were all things he had done before. Moving out a few years in advance now will definitely be useful.

“We’ll develop step by step. In the future, we can also make blinds, produce disposable chopsticks, and popsicle sticks. We can’t always just sell raw materials, because that won’t make money, right?”