Board manufacturer calls for cleaner wood despite new cleaning plant

Speaking at the Timber Recycling Opportunities in the East of England conference in Cambridge yesterday, Kronospan's residues buyer Richard Coulson said the firm could take in a lot more recycled material. But Mr Coulson said that material being supplied was not acceptable, with too many contaminants still getting into the system.

“We&#39d; like to use more recycled fibre,” Mr Coulson said, “but unfortunately it is not clean enough. Some of the contaminants still get through the cleaning process and it is abrasive on our machinery. We have made considerable investment to use more, but the quality of material supplied throughout the supply chain must improve to develop the market.”

Kronospan's plant at Chirk takes in around 250,000 tonnes of recycled material a year, but Mr Coulson told delegates at the event organised by Flora and Fauna International that the firm could take in at least 350,000 tonnes.

“We've still a way to go until we reach our maximum,” he said. “Using recycled material saves us a big cost – it saves on energy as it doesn't need as much drying as virgin wood. But at the moment, there is a cost attributed to using recycled fibre – the cleaning, the machine stoppages, the wear on machinery. We've got to get it cleaner.”

The cleanliness of wood waste is a major issue in wood recycling and a dominant theme of the conference yesterday. Barry Marshall of Huntingdon Recycling told delegates that contamination was affecting suppliers of material to boardmills as well – with non-wood waste causing immense harm to their wood-chipping machinery.

“A two tonne load – worth 20 to us – can do 2000 worth of damage to our machinery if there's any contamination,” Mr Marshall said, “and that cost doesn't include the down time when the machinery is not working. It's quite tempting to ring up a customer and say we don't want to take their material any more. But we feel that it's not right to do that.”

Mr Marshall said that the only way to combat the problem was through education, making it absolutely clear to those filling skips with wood waste that they cannot put other materials in with the wood.