Washington Pioneers Wood Recycling

Traditionally an area of primary wood production, the state of Washington is moving ahead in recycling wood products. 

Wood is one of the most elegant, natural, and valuable materials on earth. It is found in innumerable structural, paper, artistic, industrial, and fuel applications. Products have been made out of wood throughout history and innovative new wood products, such as engineered I-joists for floors, continue to be developed. It is a strong natural material, extremely versatile, relatively inexpensive, and completely renewable within one generation.

Demand for wood is growing at an extraordinary rate. Markets for wood and paper products have become globalized, with products from the Pacific Northwest sold all over the world. Given the versatility of wood, per capita demand will likely not decrease and may even increase as the rapidly developing nations expand their economies and their consumption of raw materials. As we project 50 years into the future, global population is expected to grow by more than four billion people. Considering all these factors, annual consumption of wood worldwide is expected to nearly double from 3.4 billion cubic meters now to more than 6.5 billion cubic meters.

At the same time, the supply of wood as a raw material is falling. The Pacific Northwest is one of the two great forest growing regions in North America, containing more than 20 percent of the world’s forests. Only Russia contains more forest land. Here there has been tremendous pressure to reduce harvest activity from the high levels of the 1980’s. This pressure is coming from a variety of powerful forces, many of which are environmental initiatives. The decline in annual harvest levels in the region is projected to drop to 58 million cubic meters after the year 2000 compared to a harvest level in the 1980s of 117 million cubic meters. What is also notable is that the quality of wood in traditional solid wood products is of significantly lower quality than was available twenty five years ago.

With a growing global demand and diminishing supply, there is a real supply crisis. It is an immediate problem for Pacific Northwest mills, but it is also a worsening global issue.

Wood has been cheap and under-utilized throughout history. Even today almost half the wood used in the world is for fuel. As the reality of a supply crisis hits and prices climb, traditional usage patterns do not change easily.

At the same time, product markets are becoming even more exacting. Consumers want quality and high performance at a competitive price. There is increasing specialization of products requiring that manufacturers provide variations that meet the specialized needs of various segments of the market. More products are being used or installed in a more highly engineered fashion, hence raising the need for closer tolerances in those products that are manufactured.

Environmental expectations will continue to grow. There is definitely a move to make regulations more "reasonable" -- to make them more clear, consistent, expeditious, cost-effective and incentive oriented. But there is little indication, at least in the Northwest, that citizens want environmental improvements stopped, let alone rolled back. Environmental pressures will create a need for wood supply solutions.

In the Pacific Northwest, the wood and paper industry is a key player in the balancing of environmental and economic interests. In collaboration with community groups, local governments and state agencies like the Clean Washington Center, the industry is recycling increasing quantities of paper and waste wood.

Wood recycling not only helps supply needed fiber to industry but can alleviate various environmental problems like solid waste disposal and the burning of land clearing debris that add to air pollution. There are cost savings -- not only in avoided disposal costs and air pollution clean up -- but also in raw materials costs to industry. To the extent that industry adopts new processing and manufacturing technologies as it adapts to the use of recovered wood, newer high performance and higher value added products can be made. This will improve mills’ overall competitive position, enabling them to not only retain existing high paying jobs but to add new ones.

Wood recycling is an important part of the wood supply solution. It balances out economic and environmental needs, using new technology to create high-value, high performance products that the market will accept.

Traditionally, raw wood has been abundant in the Northwest and wood waste was not considered valuable enough to process and recycle. Industrial wood waste was recovered and burned in boilers as a low value hog fuel. Most construction, demolition and land clearing debris was burned or buried on site or hauled to a disposal site.

This has all changed. Wood is now recycled in large volumes, with more recovery to come. The supply amounts to a huge volume of waste materials that could come from the municipal waste stream, the construction/demolition/landclearing waste stream — material that traditionally went into inert landfills —and waste from large industrial concerns. Much of this material was traditionally burned, but burning of most wood waste is now prohibited under the Clean Air Act.

Preliminary estimates are that the volume of scrap wood generated from the following sources could comprise, in aggregate, from a quarter to half the volume of the municipal solid waste stream: building productions and construction, pallets and crates, demolition debris and land clearing debris.

There is additional wood residuals volume generated from large sawmills and other wood products plants and a large volume that is potentially available from modified logging practices. The former has already been largely tapped and the latter may be possible in five to 15 years if demand for the fiber from logging residuals exists and as the economics of residual recovery improves.

Recently, two factors have increased wood waste recycling in the state and region. First, timber harvest reductions and continued growth in demand have caused wood and fiber shortages and high prices for virgin wood. This led to recycling of industrial scrap as a wood and fiber source in the 1990s and the recovery of debris to replace scrap as hog fuel. Over time, timber shortages are encouraging recycling of debris into higher value uses. Second, high tipping fees at disposal sites and restrictions on open burning are driving contractors to seek less expensive options, such as recycling, for their debris and construction scrap.

Wood waste is primarily used as a wood and fiber substitute in traditional markets. Conversion to wood waste is becoming increasingly attractive for potential end-users as virgin sources become more scarce and expensive and as technology developments improve processing quality, cost, and ease of use in manufacturing.

Higher value applications for wood waste include pulp and paper and wood products such as particleboard. Medium value applications include non-paper fiber products, bulking materials, and landscaping uses. Fuel applications include use in ethanol, gasification, pellets and hog fuel.

Washington state had virtually no wood recycling before 1990. In 1994, the Clean Washington Center estimates that the state recycled more than a half million tons of recovered wood, excluding industrial residues. At present, the state is the home of more than 30 wood recycling processors. Some local governments are also installing wood processing equipment in their transfer stations. These, largely private operations, are very dynamic, entrepreneurial businesses.

More than five of them are very large and all are growing rapidly. Some are integrated into wood products companies, some are integrated into the trucking business, and still others are affiliated with garbage hauling companies. Wood waste processing presently consists primarily of sorting, grinding, and then screening for size and contaminants. Processors can choose among large stationary or smaller, mobile equipment. Equipment continues to improve, but processing remains capital intensive. Obtaining attractive financing and operating at capacity remain key to economic viability. Since end-users are increasing processing requirements, financing and economics will continue to be a barrier to processors’ expansion. In addition, wood waste transportation costs are expensive but improving, and for the present, processing is still occurring locally.

The end users of recycled wood are also dramatically expanding their wood recycling activity. Presently four paper mills in Washington state are now using the material, meeting all product performance requirements and saving money — a situation considered impossible by industry analysts three years ago. Oregon has sixteen panelboard production plants. Three were using only a small amount of recycled wood four years ago. Today, fifteen of them are using recycled wood collected from all over the region.

Supply of recyclable wood material is expected to increase to more than a million tons per year. The growth will occur from all supply sectors. The challenge will be to get at it economically, process it to quality specifications, and to do it quickly.

Despite current success in wood recycling in the Pacific Northwest, there is much more work to be done to expand the recovery levels and consolidate the demand for the material. The industry is expected to double its size over the next three years. Present barriers include inadequate supply -- more wood needs to be diverted from CDL and municipal waste streams. Established hog fuel markets and new "smart burning" boilers are currently competing with lower value material and non-fuel applications and may preempt their development of the product markets.

Transportation costs are also a significant factor that deters movement of wood waste to markets, though this is beginning to improve. Market demand is underdeveloped, lacking depth, breadth and stability. Financing and infrastructure for wood recycling are needed -- processing of wood is capital intensive and attractive financing is needed for equipment purchases, and processing requirements are rising as value-added markets come into the system. Infrastructure for collection, processing, and end-use is growing but still immature.

Information and awareness is inadequate regarding opportunities for wood waste recycling, but it is improving. In the area of technology, testing must occur and protocols must be developed. Specifications for wood waste processing and use need to be developed, standardized, and implemented to assure that supply quality meets markets needs.

The Clean Washington Center and other state and local government agencies are collaborating with businesses to develop this new industry. The Center’s role is essentially catalytic -- to provide strategic direction to industry and government players for filling key development gaps, identifying and overcoming barriers, and by troubleshooting problems. In addition, the Center aims to accelerate the growth of the industry by helping to coordinate the supply and end-use players, focusing attention on market realities and market driven solutions, and helping facilitate needed developments in technology.

The Clean Washington Center’s specific goals include encouraging and stimulating the maximum recovery and recycling of wood waste, especially as a feedstock for the pulp, paper and panelboard industries in Washington. Also, the Center aims to develop and expand higher value applications for recovered wood, develop and site new and innovative manufacturing plants in Washington that make fiber-based and value-added products from recycled wood, and to strengthen the overall markets for recycled wood in Washington.

Market demand for these materials has the potential to double in the next three years. As important, the market will grow in the area of higher value product applications.