Wood waste: main sources of formation and types of disposal

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Forests are called the lungs of our planet. They participate in the process of photosynthesis, making the region habitable. That is why recycling of wood waste is so important. Statistics show that about a quarter of all wood remains in the forest. Thin trunks of young growth, branches, hemp - all this remains to rot in place. Production from wood waste of this type is not developed. The remaining elements of the tree significantly complicate the restoration of the forest after the completion of felling.

Important Facts

Cuttings, sawdust, bark, which are formed during the processing of wood, are also not used in any way. Often this wood waste is simply burned in kilns.

How appropriate is such an application? Can wood waste recycling be profitable? Let's try to find answers to these questions.

Use case

All wood waste is divided into several groups:

• wooden packaging and packaging;
• chips;
• sawdust;
• cut wood;
• natural wood waste.

Experts are convinced that it is possible to recycle them in full, losing only a minimal percentage of the tree.

In our country, the use of wood waste is reduced to burning. The main purpose of such a process is to obtain additional heat. From an environmental point of view, this method is safe for the environment, but it is not economically viable.

Processing into briquettes

There are several more ways to turn unwanted garbage into an effective source of income. Wood waste is converted into briquettes, coal, synthesis gas. Charcoal is obtained by pyrolysis (wood debris is burned without access to atmospheric oxygen). The product of such a transformation is suitable for use not only for domestic purposes, but also in the metallurgical, light industry.

The fuel obtained by burning briquettes is recognized as high-quality and economically justified.

Special resins are used to bind sawdust into briquettes.

During gasification, wood waste is converted into synthesis gas. This method in our country is used in minimal volumes, despite the fact that it has a clear economic benefit. The resulting product is ideal for the subsequent production of gasoline and diesel fuel.

From an ecological point of view, gasification poses practically no danger to the environment, since harmful impurities do not enter the earth's atmosphere.

Industrial applications

Different types of wood waste are used for industrial purposes. For example, they are in demand in the manufacture of components for the furniture industry.

Such wastes are indispensable in the manufacture of chipboard, fiberboard, and construction. Currently, sawdust, wood shavings are used in the creation of pyrotechnic products, toys. In agriculture, waste is used to make animal feed and fertilizers. The chemical industry is one of the main consumers of wood raw materials. Yeast, oxalic acid, lignosulfonate, ethyl alcohol are produced from it.

Wood flour is used as an additive in putty, glue, various products are created on its basis by piezothermoplasticity.

A huge amount of wood waste remains in our country, the competent disposal of which is the basis of Russia's economic profit.

Classification of waste woodworking and sawmilling

Those residues that are formed during the processing of raw materials at industrial enterprises are divided into several groups:

• tails and croakers of boards;
• transverse and longitudinal trimmings formed in woodworking and sawmilling (end cuts of boards and logs), pencils, scrap cutting, trimming dry parts;
• tiled and plywood: remnants of plywood, veneer, chipboard;
• chips obtained in the process of processing parts and blanks in factories and machines;
• wood dust, sawdust when sawing wood;
• bark formed during the cleaning of roundwood in plywood, sawmills, pulp and paper production.

To these types, you can add a significant amount of wood materials that are formed during the manufacture of furniture in various workshops that have appeared in recent years in our country.

All these wastes are conditionally divided into large-wood (business), the sizes of which are suitable for mechanical processing into the right thing using woodworking equipment, as well as into small things, special production is required for its use.

Composition and scope of application

Nowadays, almost all wood waste is recycled in European countries. In them, about 11% falls on bark, 13% on sawdust, 10% on shavings. Only 25% is business waste that can become a raw material for the manufacture of boards, the functioning of the pulp and paper industry.

In the USA, after the introduction of chippers and debarkers into production, high-quality wood chips are obtained, moreover, it was possible to reduce the cost of its production.

Most of the resulting waste is used in pulp and paper production. Due to the depletion of the raw material base, many countries around the world are trying to use waste.

If in Soviet times slabs were used in large quantities as fuel, today the situation has changed. These types of wood waste began to be used in furniture production. Parquet is obtained from large waste,shields, box containers, barrels. In the construction industry, they go to the production of pressed joinery products.

Summarize

Among the promising areas for the use of wood waste, it is necessary to note their use in briquette production. In recent years, special plants have been opened in many Russian regions that process wood and chip residues into compact granules and briquettes. For example, such enterprises have already shown their profitability and expediency in Karelia, the Arkhangelsk region.

These regions are the "forest forge" of Russia. If earlier they were mostly engaged in logging, and no attention was paid to the issues of its complete processing, now the situation has changed for the better.

Realizing how important it is to clean up a forest plot with high quality in order to be able to plant seedlings on the site of a cut down forest, innovative wood waste processing technologies are being introduced in the Arkhangelsk region, including directly on the plot itself.

Domestic briquette plants have mastered the technology of making high-quality briquettes, so the sale of finished products is carried out not only on the domestic market, but also outside the Russian Federation.

Environmentalists are convinced that with the deep processing of wood, no harm will be done to the environment, and the country will be able to count on a stable economic profit.