Figures are hard to pin down, but estimates suggest that in the UK up to 7.5 million tonnes of wood waste a year are going to landfill. However, in the M62 corridor at least – an area that spans Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Ellesmere Port and the Vale Royal district of Cheshire – wood recycling is an established practice and the ‘average’ organisation is sending less than 10% of their wood waste to landfill.
Wood Residues Footprint for the M62 Corridor (West), a study carried out by TRADA Technology Ltd for the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), in partnership with The Mersey Forest and Red Rose Forest Partnership, involved a detailed survey of the area to assess the volumes and types of wood waste being generated and to investigate the potential for recycling.
A wide range of organisations generate and handle wood waste in this highly industrialised and populated area, but most would agree that while improving environmental performance through recycling initiatives is important and desirable, most decisions in this respect were cost driven. As the cost of sending waste to landfill goes up, companies have an even greater incentive to find alternatives.
The study examined:
Many of the companies surveyed said their wood waste was collected by third parties for recycling or composting, while others were able to reuse or recycle on site a portion of the waste wood generated. Some companies burned their wood waste for heating, saving energy and disposal costs.
Methods and costs
The cost of disposal varied greatly within the study, but so too did the methods of disposal. Some companies would be able to sell their waste – as good quality sawdust, for example – but others, particularly urban construction site operators, could pay £250 to have a large skip removed at short notice.
In line with WRAP’s own objectives, the study’s aims were straightforward: to reduce still further the volume of wood waste going to landfill; to compile technical and commercial information to help develop new recycling initiatives; to develop new products derived from wood waste; and to improve sustainability in all wood using industries.
People and businesses in the M62 corridor generate a high level of waste of all types, however, and different sectors have different needs. John Lea, director of technical services for Greater Manchester Waste Group, said: “In Greater Manchester, 2.3 million people are generating 1.5 million tonnes of waste of all types every year. Fewer than 105,000 tonnes are being recycled, but it is our aim that this will change.”
The main recyclates, he added, are green waste, paper, scrap metal, glass, cans and wood. There are four main channels for wood recycling – through household waste recycling, via bulky waste collections, at the area’s main waste treatment plants (where there is more space on site to segregate wood waste), and direct from the producer.
Wood will play a significant part in Greater Manchester’s recycling targets, said Mr Lea. For 2003/2004 the authority aims to recycle 20% of waste, more than double the previous year’s achievement, and a figure that will go up to 45% by 2005/2006. While in the current tax year 2,916 tonnes of wood were recycled, this is expected to rise to 6,000 tonnes in the next 12 months.
Storage problems
A key issue for Greater Manchester, and indeed for local authorities everywhere, is space – both to store and to segregate wood waste. Lack of space is even more of a barrier to recycling in the construction industry, as John Rees of construction services giant Carillion plc explained.
Timber products are used extensively in temporary works on site – for hoardings, signage, fencing, temporary accommodation, formwork and falsework. It is also used extensively in the buildings under construction, both structurally and in finishings (doors, windows, skirting boards, mouldings). Waste can be generated at all stages of the construction process, which can also include demolition of existing structures. This changing flow of waste carries its own problems.
Building sites are by nature temporary and in urban areas they can be congested. This allows little room for segregating and storing waste for potential recycling and can mean that the construction company does not have time to “build up relationships with local organisations handling wood waste,” as Mr Rees pointed out. Contamination in the form of nails and other fixings, chemicals or preservative treatments are further barriers to recycling on site.
Legal obligations
Legislation, however, dictates that as producers of waste, Carillion has “a legal duty” to manage it and there are opportunities to do so. “Good quality demolition timbers can be reused. We can also educate designers to reduce the amount of waste produced throughout the construction process and prefabrication would limit considerably the amount of waste generated on site,” Mr Rees told delegates.
The study made clear that finding new markets for wood waste took effort, determination and, in some cases, a certain imagination.
Arboriculturist Chris Frankland approached the problem of recycling urban timber – the trees we cut down in parks and gardens – with self-confessed passion. “In the US, 30% of hardwood production is derived from recycling urban hardwood trees. The horror of the industry in the UK is that we trash whole stacks of beautiful timber because it has no apparent commercial value.”
Chris Frankland Tree Services has been innovative in solving this problem, encouraging one owner to hire a portable sawmill to cut a huge beech tree into usable planks, designing a range of timber sheds that will withstand all weathers and involving schoolchildren in using trees to create simple rustic furniture or eye-catching sculptures in their school grounds – or more ambitiously, building outside classrooms and learning much in the process.
Mr Frankland would argue, too, that trees felled because they are diseased have their own value. “Deformity” in wood is part of its attraction. For example, when cut, diseased areas can offer an interesting pattern for panels or floors.
Stuart Howarth of Hadfield Wood Recyclers spoke with equal enthusiasm about the potential that exists to create marketable products from waste. The family-owned business specialises in producing recycled woodchip for the particleboard industry, but has also invested heavily in the manufacture of animal bedding products, One of its products, Easibed equine bedding, won the National Recycling awards Best Reprocessing Initiative in 2002.
Attention to detail and rigorous quality control are essential in their business, Mr Howarth stressed. All material received by Hadfield is manually inspected and no contamination is acceptable, reinforcing the study’s findings in other sectors.
There is considerable potential for wood waste, but better collection and careful segregation of cleaner, high quality wood will be important factors in developing new markets.
