WOOD RECYCLING
"We believe materials should be used in its correct manner, the waste hierarchy should be followed at all times.”
"We believe materials should be used in its correct manner, the waste hierarchy should be followed at all times.”
Seeing the wood for the trees With so much of our own waste wood now staying within the UK, it’s tempting to assume that we are completely self- sufficient in terms of wood production. But, as Mark points out, things aren’t quite so straight-forward.
“There is a lot of publicity at the moment around timber in the UK,” he said.
“We haven’t had a massive planting programme for fresh wood since the war. We will run out of wood if we’re not careful and don’t get back on track with planting - and not planting necessarily broad leaves, but coniferous types of wood for harvesting for the wood industry.
“From a politician’s point of view, our requirement for wood and our production of timber are fairly evenly matched. However, wood is very seasonal and it goes through peaks and troughs throughout the year.
“We only have about 11% forestation cover in the UK, which is very low compared to many other European countries, and it has dropped quite a lot over recent years. What’s more, the part of the UK waste wood industry that has grown in that time is biomass, so material is now not getting felled to be made into timber products, but getting felled to be burned. It doesn’t make sense.”
Forward facing
As the UK’s waste wood industry continues to bloom, legislation has kept up to regulate it. Last November the EA approved the WRA’s Fire Prevention Plan (FPP), the first sector-specific guide of its kind to be produced, and in July, the WWC project should come to fruition.
So what is the next big issue the waste wood industry are setting their sights on? In a word, dust.
Currently both softwood and hardwood dusts have a Workplace Exposure Limit (WEL) of 5mg/m3, although there are proposals in motion to drop this further.
“I think going forward, a lot of legislation is probably going to be driven by the health and safety executive,” said Mark.
“The world has gone a bit health and safety daft but it’s important that we keep an eye on our people and make sure that they are protected when they are working here.”
“I think another change we will see is a lot more company consolidation, with smaller companies being taken over by the bigger companies. It’s something we’ve already started to see this year. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing; we will have to wait and see.”
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