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Recyled Wood Products
(NAPS)-Did you know there are hundreds of products made from recycled wood? Everything from adhesives and components of auto door panels to methanol, paper, and pet litter.
Recycling materials for other uses is an environmental commitment of wood products producers. Using recycled wood materials helps to preserve America's forests, and encourages technological innovation to find even more uses for recycled wood.
In fact, wood reclamation and recycling has taken place for centuries. The processing of logs into boards, panels, and other wood products is an old industry. And sawmills generated wood residue in the form of bark, chips and sawdust. These mill by-products were put to good use as animal bedding, ground cover, fuel and in the production of paper.
Since 1900 wood residue has grown rapidly. In 1993, 13.7 million tons of used wood were a part of the municipal solid waste stream (MSW), with nearly 10 percent-1.3 million tons-recovered for other uses. And progress in developing more uses and better recovery techniques has resulted in a growing list of recycled wood products.
For example, preserved wood products contain EPA-approved pesticides. It's used in residential and commercial construction projects where wood comes in contact with the ground or water. Preserving the wood protects it from fungi, decay and termites and extends the service life of wood for 20 to 40 years in the case of outdoor decks and walkways, and even 50 and 60 years, in the case of wood utility poles. Preserved wood from such building projects may, in time, be reused as fence posts or as components for making outdoor lawn furniture or pet houses.
Some preserved wood products, like creosote pressure-treated railroad crossties, may see a recycled second life as landscape and garden border timbers or as retaining walls. Those same crossties may then be used again and burned at approved co-generation facilities as fuel to create energy. In the mid-Atlantic coastal region, a utility company provides and installs out-of-service utility poles to homeowners who wish to erect nests for ospreys.
Since all of us are concerned about the environment, it's reassuring to know that using wood products like preserved wood has environmental benefits. Wood is a natural product that is renewable, reusable and recyclable. No other building material is as strong or as adaptable as wood and hardly any of it goes to waste! Using preserved wood is good for the environment.
For more information, a brochure, and a consumer
information sheet about preserved wood, call the American Wood Preservers
Institute at 1-800-356-AWPI, or surf their web site www.awpi.org on the
Internet.