What is wood waste

Wood waste refers to the waste from any timber product.

This definition excludes materials such as woody shrubs,

branches or other "forest residuals". These other materials

are grouped together as garden or green waste.

Wood waste is best categorized by timber product type from which it comes, regardless of the

physical shape of the wood waste, i.e. shavings, sawdust, off-cuts or end-of-life items.

1- Untreated Timber - includes both hard wood and soft wood with no preservative treatment, paint.

2- Engineered Timber Product - includes particleboard, medium-density-fiberboard, plywood, low and high-density fiberboard, oriented-strand-board, finger-jointed-timber and beams. These products are predominantly manufactured with the use of formaldehyde based resins.

3- Treated Timber - includes both hard wood and soft wood treated with timber preservatives such as copper-chrome-arsenic (CCA), light-organic-solvent-preservative (LOSP) and creosote. Also includes any other painted or lacquered timber products.

Where does wood waste come from?

1- Construction and Demolition - includes large amounts of untreated timber with smaller amounts of engineered timber products and treated timbers associated with general building and landscape uses.

2- Commercial and Industrial - is dominated by engineered timber products by businesses like kitchen manufacturers, cabinet makers and commercial joineries.

3- Packaging and Transport - predominantly end-of-life one-way containers and soft wood pallets.

4- Utilities - include end-of-life items such as power and telephone poles and cross arms, in addition to railway ties.

What is happening with Wood Waste?

Most wood waste generated ends up as landfill. Small amounts of untreated timber are recycled into landscape products or used as firewood. The reason behind such small recycling rates are issues relating to engineered and treated timber products. The timber preservatives and formaldehyde-based resins used in these products may contaminate mulches and composts and create unacceptable environmental problems if they are burned. Copper-chrome-arsenic treated timber, for instance, should never be burned as it releases arsenic into the environment.