The second life of wood
Wood is one of the most easily recyclable materials. Reconditioned pallets, chips, pellets, furniture, construction panels: the possibilities for giving wood waste a second life are endless.
Chipboard
When you sort untreated wood (A-wood), it is used to make a new product: chipboard. Chipboard can be used to produce pallets, furniture and other building materials.
Better still: if you recycle it again after this second life, then it can be used to produce green electricity!
A-wood waste (untreated and uncontaminated solid wood) can be used to produce chipboard.
Before it is pulped, the wood undergoes various treatments:
- Shredding with a mobile chipper to form sheets of approximately 30 cm
- Removal of any metal items (nails, staples, etc.) using a magnet
- Removal of impurities: plastic, residual metal, stone and glass
- Reduction to a size adjusted to the chipper
The shredding process can then begin:
- The wood is put into the shredder and ground into chips. These chips are then mixed with chips of other types of wood (coniferous and deciduous trees, round logs, waste from wood chips)
- Those fine chips are mixed, heated and bonded under pressure to make large sheets of chipboard.
- These sheets are then sawn and cool down afterwards in a cooling mill.
- Final stage: sanding, cutting and packing of ready-to-use chipboard
The uses of chipboard
Chipboard can be used for anything and everything
- production of certain parts of pallets (blocks)
- construction materials: boards, walls, etc.
- furniture: manufacture of furniture and shelves
Chipboard is very environmentally friendly and inexpensive, and you can find it just about anywhere in your everyday environment.
Maybe the desk you are working at or the shelf containing your reference books may have started a second life in the A-wood container of your company!
Reconditioned pallets
Many pallets circulate in a pool system (Euro Pallet, CHEP, LPR, etc.). When the pallets are leased, the lessor guarantees reconditioning.
For the other systems (purchase of pallets and exchange), specialised companies collect worn or damaged pallets to recondition them. In most cases, the pallets are cleaned, repaired and reintegrated into the circuit.
Waste from recovery activities and severely damaged pallets is used to make chipboard or shock-absorbing wood chips. It can also be used to produce heat energy.
Pallets are reconditioned in various stages:
- Checking of the quality of the pallets
- Sorting of the pallets depending on the type, dimensions and strength
- Actual reconditioning
- Repairable pallets: disassembly and repair of the damaged parts. Non-repairable pallets: recovery of the usable parts
Nothing is lost, everything is reused
The repaired pallets are offered for sale on the market for second-hand pallets.
Non-repairable pallets and damaged parts of pallets are recycled.
Shock-absorbing wood chips
Untreated wood waste can be used to produce shock-absorbing wood. This is mainly wood from pallets which are too badly damaged to be reconditioned, or from parts of pallets which repairers cannot reuse to repair other pallets.
- The waste is first shredded to form sheets of approximately 30 cm.
- A cleaning machine removes the pieces of metal (nails, clips, etc.) and other impurities.
- Then the sheets are shredded into smaller chips.
- Often the producer adds a natural dye so that the chips all look the same.
Use of wood chips
Wood chips can be used for a wide range of purposes:
- as decoration in gardens and parks
- as a surface on playgrounds for children
A last significant detail: wood chips are completely biodegradable. They decompose over time and are converted into compost. A third life, in full symbiosis with Nature!
Pellets
The use of wood pellets for the production of heat is becoming more and more common in our country, both in boilers for private households and in power generation plants for companies.
When that waste arrives at the pellet manufacturer’s premises, it is treated in various ways:
- Shredding wood in a saw silo
- Drying the chips and sawdust to minimise humidity
- Pressing: the chips and sawdust are compressed into small cylinders. During this process, no binder is used: the pellets are formed by the force of compression, as a result of which they also keep their shape.
- Cooling down
- Sieving to remove the dust from the production process
- Packaging of the pellets: in bulk, bags or big bags.
- Finally, the pellets are delivered to the customer or the distributor.
Pellets are wood pellets that are mainly used as fuel
They are made from by-products of wood, such as sawdust. This sawdust comes from cutting down forests or from factories which recycle their wood waste (joineries, pallet factories, etc.).