Hi Y’All
We are doing quite a lot of work in the garden, cutting back hedges, small trees etc, (subject to them not having nests in.) My great frustration is that we can’t have a bonfire here so we bag the trimmings up and take them off to the dechetterie. ,(I wonder if there is research on the pollution caused by many vehicles carrying g loads of green waste v a decent bonfire…?) Anyway, I’m looking at buying something principally to grind up wood which we can then use to make new paths around the garden - it will offset some of the cost of the machine Does anyone have a recommendation? If we buy a decent chipper can we use it for green stuff prior to composting? Petrol or electric? Everything I’ve looked at so far is about the 700€ mark or more 
I have a collection of useless shredders…petrol and electric…that we just don’t use as they are so annoying! Basically cheap shredders are not worth it. We would have been better off buying a more professional model, than these piles of 400€ - 600€ junk.
We used to have a wonderful village communal approach that allowed us to put our prunings in an out of the way corner of the village and brought in a huge shedder for a day in the autumn and we all helped shred, and take away the shreddings. Sadly some people put rubble into the pile, so it was closed down by the mairie. But if you are i to collective action perhaps something to ask about locally?
So now we are building a dead hedge round the bottom of the garden…will be about 100 metres of it, and great for wildlife.
Yes there was, a smallish is bonfire was equivalent to 27000 km of a car. That said our shredder/chipper has a 13hp 4 stroke engine and seems to use more petrol than a larger car so draw your own conclusions.
Ours chips straight ish branches up to about 70mm and shredds the usual stuff.
We have one of these that works very well - I know it is not a full petrol chipper but it has cleared loads of our stuff and makes good compost:
https://www.bricodepot.fr/catalogue/broyeur-pour-vegetaux-2800-w/prod55956/
We have had a few but ours which is a rebranded Sterwins version of Mat’s and has been the best and a godsend.
One of ours looks just like Mat’s and only take a few straight’ish branches at a time, and gunks up if put anything else in. It takes forever to do even a small pile of prunings, and then the box underneath jams unless you empty it every 10 minutes. And the shreddings aren’t really shredded, properly as get 6 inch pieces.
Maybe ok if you are just doing a few shrubs and not bothered about how long it takes. I am not zen enough to stand there for hours and hours feeding in a few branches at a time.
We hate it.
Not the same as ours then, as long as it fits in the slot it chomps it up, it has only jammed once and takes green branches up to 40mm without any problems, you have to make sure the jaws are adjusted properly but we have covered many paths with the mulchings.
We got fed up forever replacing blades on the other types so that was the reason we went for the crusher type.
Everything bigger than 40mm we burn in the fire so it is pointless spending huge amounts on anything bigger for us.
I would look on Scheppach dot de or dot com. Some of their stuff is really solid and not necessarily expensive. There are a few lemons but not many and reviews if googled across sites have been reliable. Shipping is not expensive if needed as it’s EU. When Scheppach were out of stock I found lefeld dot de had good prices and solid looking stuff.
Rent a professional one