Replacement is a purchase cycle
At a 6-month life, a ten-year program buys timber 20 times. At 18 months, 7 times. Recycled HDPE mats are built for 10+ years of service, so one purchase covers the same ten years. The price of each timber purchase is in your own records; the cycle is what multiplies it.
Every purchase is a delivery
Take a program running 1,500 digging mats, 4' × 18', with timber replaced once a year. Timber ships 18 to a truck, so each purchase is 84 loads, and ten purchases are 840 loads. The same fleet in recycled HDPE ships 24 to a truck: 63 loads, once.
500-mile haul at $3.64 per mile (DAT national flatbed average, October 2026). GroundUp shipping figures. Excludes any HDPE buy-back offer and used-timber resale.
Timber life changes the answer:
| Timber lasts | Timber purchases | Timber loads | HDPE loads | Fewer trucks | Less freight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 months | 20 | 1,680 | 63 | 1,617 | $2,942,940 |
| 12 months | 10 | 840 | 63 | 777 | $1,414,140 |
| 18 months | 7 | 588 | 63 | 525 | $955,500 |
1,500 mats, 4' × 18' digging, 500-mile haul, ten years. Cash figures, not discounted.
Fuel and emissions from those trips
The 777 trucks that never run in the 12-month case are 777,000 round-trip miles. At 6 miles per gallon and EPA's 22.4 lb of CO₂ per gallon of diesel, that is about 2,900,800 lb of CO₂, roughly what 286 passenger cars emit in a year.
Worn timber has to leave the site
A worn timber mat is a disposal item: it has to be loaded, hauled off and landfilled or ground, and each of those steps has a cost. Disposal pricing varies too widely to quote one figure, so Run the Numbers takes your own disposal cost per mat. Recycled HDPE mats that finish one job move to the next one, and GroundUp makes a buy-back offer when you are done with them.
Put your own numbers in
The figures above use one program and one set of assumptions. Run the Numbers takes your mat count, timber price, timber life, haul distance and disposal cost, and shows ten years of timber next to one recycled HDPE fleet. Why HDPE has the full weight and truck comparison by mat size.
Questions
How often do timber mats need to be replaced?
Mixed-hardwood mats typically last 6 to 18 months in service, so a ten-year program buys timber 7 to 20 times. Recycled HDPE mats are built for 10+ years.
How much freight does replacing timber mats add?
For 1,500 digging mats, 4' x 18', replaced once a year and hauled 500 miles, timber takes 840 loads over ten years against 63 for recycled HDPE: 777 fewer trucks and about $1,414,140 less freight at $3.64 per mile.
What happens to recycled HDPE mats when the job ends?
They move to the next job, or GroundUp makes a buy-back offer on them.
