From BioCycle Magazine
September 2000, Page 26
PROCESSING, END USE TRENDS
WOOD RECOVERY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE U.S.
A national directory with over 700 processors provides insight into the types of wood processed and recovered, as well as market developments.
Conni Kunzler
There is no shortage of wood residuals in many parts of the United States these days. Hurricanes, floods, and a host of other natural disasters continue to leave many communities with thousands of tons to manage. New construction and remodeling are also up, increasing the amount of wood trim and other wood by-products. Demolition creates its own stream of wood, and deconstruction or the disassembling of buildings is increasing. All of these activities have boosted wood recovery and processing — and created a host of new wood products.
To help communities and businesses with wood residuals and by-products connect with processors that recover these materials and use them for new products, the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) published the National Wood Recycling Directory in 1996. “The directory is designed to help individuals, groups, communities, builders, remodelers, and demolition contractors better utilize wood resources and decrease the amount of material being landfilled,” says Brad Williams, manager of AF&PA’s Timber Management and Supply group.
In 1998, the directory went on-line as a searchable database. Updated in 1999, there are over 700 processors in all states except Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming (see box for information on how to add a listing or search the database). This article summarizes data in the directory, and identifies trends in wood recovery and new wood-based products.
WOOD PROCESSORS
A full 67 percent of processors listed in the directory accept used wooden pallets and skids to make new products. According to the National Wooden Pallet & Container Association (NWPCA), there are 1.9 billion pallets in use today. In a 1999 NWPCA survey of its member companies, 57 percent of wood pallet users reported that they send their damaged wood pallets to a recycler. (For more details on pallet recycling, see “Recycling Continues Ascent in Pallet Business,” June, 2000.)
“We take in all sizes of pallets,” says Dave Kropelnicki of Golden West Pallet, Inc. in Sacramento, California. The pallets are dismantled and the wood sorted and stacked by size and length. Nails are either flattened or ground off because removing them is too time consuming, he adds. The remanufactured pallets are sold mostly to Fortune 500 companies for durable goods. “Pallet recycling has really increased because remanufactured pallets save money, and for the most part there isn’t a quality issue,” says Kropelnicki.
Another 52 percent of processors indicate they accept brush trimmings under 12 inches in diameter. This is followed by construction and lumber trim, which is taken at 46 percent of sites. Tree residue greater than 12 inches in diameter is accepted by 41 percent of processors in the directory. Most of the brush and tree residue are processed into chips and used for composting, hog fuel and landscape mulch.
A recent trend in the mulch market is coloring. “It started in Ohio and has taken off,” says John Venditti, vice-president of Clifton Recycling, Inc. in Syracuse, New York. Clifton Recycling takes in used wooden pallets from the Onondaga area and uses them to make decorative mulch. “People want a variety,” says Venditti. “Our decorative mulches are made from cured wood.”
While demolition wood residues can sometimes be difficult to recover because of quality issues, 30 percent of businesses in the directory indicate that they will accept this material. Another 22 percent will take engineered wood, while seven percent will accept preservative treated wood. Those handling demolition and treated wood typically produce chips and hog fuel.
About 27 percent of processors in the directory use some other type of wood residues to make their product. These include roofing shingles, movie sets, cable reels, antique structures, river-recovered logs, dimensional lumber, stumps, furniture production residue, telephone poles, and salvage flooring.
RECOVERED WOOD PRODUCTS
Many recovered wood processors listed in the directory make mulch — 42 percent. About 16 percent compost wood residues and 12 percent make wood chips for various final products. Another 17 percent use recovered wood for pallets — either reconditioned or new.
About 17 percent of processors also use wood residues to generate fuel for some type of energy. “We burn 200,000 tons of wood residue a year and 80,000 tons of that come to us unprocessed,” says John Rivara, plant manager of a Wheelabrator facility in Polk County, Florida. The plant generates and sells approximately 40 megawatts an hour of electricity.
“Most of the wood comes from communities’ municipal waste streams,” he adds. “We get a lot of yard trimmings, some pallets, and manufacturing plant tailings like scrap wood.” Wheelabrator requires that wood residue from communities be screened to get out dirt and finer grass. Wood residues from demolition sites are not accepted.
WOOD COMPOSITES
About eight percent of processors produce an engineered wood composite (see sidebar). Of those, about five percent make particleboard; about two percent produce a fiberboard. A handful make hardboard panels, plywood, and other types of engineered wood products. According to the Composite Panel Association (CPA), estimated shipments in the U.S. most recent of particleboard are five billion square feet; shipments of medium density fiberboard are 1.6 billion square feet.
“The lion’s share of material used to make particleboard and medium density fiberboard are by-products from industrial operations,” says Jack O’Leary, president of CPA. Milling by-products were once simply landfilled or burned. “This industry has developed a really high-end use for these by-products,” says O’Leary. Today, particleboard and MDF are used in products such as cabinetry, moldings, and furniture.
Approximately two percent of processors indicate they use recovered wood for animal bedding; another two percent produce some type of absorbent. “Essentially, we grind the wood fiber we receive and a small portion is used for absorbents” says Mike Pisczor of American Wood Fibers in Wisconsin. “But our biggest market is to plastic processors that make a composite lumber,” says Pisczor.
Composite lumber that meets the ASTM standard — which applies when a material must comply with a building code — is about 50 percent wood and 50 percent recycled milk jugs. With wood-filled plastic, the wood fiber provides reinforcement with little weight. Composite lumber is used primarily for decking and window components. “It’s a growing market,” says Pisczor. “While the composites are more costly, they are almost maintenance free.”
ANTIQUE WOOD
A growing use for recovered wood is in the construction industry. Products such as flooring, stair parts, post and beams, antique timber frames and moldings are all being made from recovered lumber. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) and other older southern yellow pines were harvested to construct the country’s industrial complexes, schools and other large structures. Southern yellow pines provided the ideal lumber for construction as it was abundant, strong and affordable. In recent years, a hot market has developed for this antique wood.
“People who appreciate fine, rare wood love this lumber, but it’s very expensive,” says Harold Faust of What It’s Worth in Austin, Texas. Faust’s company uses only recovered southern yellow pine to make new wood floors, stair parts, and cabinetry. The wood is found primarily in buildings constructed prior to about 1925. Old structures built with southern yellow pine and other rare wood are being dismantled rather than demolished. “People are deconstructing buildings just to get the old southern yellow pine,” says Faust. “It’s a very competitive business.”
Aged Wood in York, Pennsylvania works primarily with used oak, chestnut and pine to make flooring and related accessories. “We use a grass-roots network of salvagers to find out when 75 to 200-year-old barns are slated for demolition,” says Jeff Horn, company president. “The salvagers disassemble the barns rather than tear them down, but are always balancing yield against time spent on the job.”
In addition to pine, International Wood Products in Queen Anne, Maryland also looks for chestnut (Castanea dentata) from old barns, factories, and warehouses. The American Chestnut was pretty much wiped out by blight starting at the turn of the century and into the 1920s, making it a valuable recovered wood as well. International Wood Products, which makes primarily flooring, also uses reclaimed antique oak. The company has a big market in Italy in addition to the U.S.
A HIGH-VALUE MATERIAL
While wood residues come from a variety of sources and can vary in size, quality and type of wood, there are a host of new uses for these materials. “We are not about to run short of wood in this country because of sustainable forestry practices,” says Brad Williams of AF&PA. “But just as the wood products industry uses 99 percent of the timber brought to the processing plant, continued technological advances will result in dramatic increases in the amount, use and value in the marketplace of recovered wood.”
It’s clear that the value of used wood, in virtually any form, remains high. Transportation costs and contamination may cause some difficulties, but recovered wood remains an important component in the recycling arena. The production of new composite and wood-based products made from recovered wood is likely to have a long life.
Conni Kunzler is an independent consultant working with the American Forest & Paper Association and the Wood Recovery Alliance.
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