Panel Perspectives: Honext | 35
FUTURE HOLDS? WHAT THE
Cellulose and carbon – what can be done with this waste? HONEXT is one of the latest propositions of panelboard products made using alternative materials. WBPI correspondent Geoff Rhodes report
H
ow can we use timber resources better? This was a conversation topic that has been a theme for many years and the emergence of MDF from its infancy in the late 1960s to the significant 118,000,000m3 installed and planned capacity globally now, sets the scene of what is possible if all of the correct ingredients come together. The MDF story, which evolved initially from a fibreboard ‘mistake’ in Deposit, New York has morphed since then and over 50+ years, into a global industry of enormous scale and with fascinating technological breakthroughs. Fast forward to 2021 and across the globe it has probably never been more important or urgent for us to understand, explore and exploit all types of timber resources and their derivatives and to look at the multiple products, their properties, and benefits and for the wider wood product trading sectors to then explain and communicate these realities clearly to the international marketplace.
Based on current forecasts of material demand, various international reports and studies suggest that a significant global timber deficit is anticipated in the years ahead, so it is incumbent on industry to explore all possibilities of raw material sources, recycling and to waste absolutely nothing.
So, we must also acknowledge and
consider right now that wood (and let’s include all cellulose and wood fibre-based products as well in this generic description) is increasingly recognised as the prime manufacturing and construction raw material for our age.
At a time when we also know we must reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and other finite resource-based materials, wood is the ultimate in natural renewability. When curbing and mitigating climate change is our prime imperative, trees absorb the main greenhouse gas, CO2
, and
wood stores it through its lifetime. It is low energy to process, light, strong and versatile. In construction, new products such as more advanced wood-based sheet
Above: Premium sludge from the paper industry as a new panelboard feedstock material PHOTO: FIRMA
www.wbpionline.com | October/November 2021 | WBPI
materials, modified timber, and engineered timber products, including glulam and cross -laminated timber, are also enabling us to build bigger, taller, and more technically ambitiously in wood. So, dealing in a material with an increasingly technical, but positive story behind it, that is being used in ever more advanced, higher specification applications, new technologies and new products are emerging that are appropriate to our
time. Realising and valuing this potential and delivering the sector’s messages to specifiers, end users and ultimately consumers will be an evolving and fresh dynamic for historically a most traditional of industries.
PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY WASTE Through long term research things are really changing so now let us enter the world and terminologies within the pulp and paper
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