2023-06-15 09:21:00
When his employees have transformed a pile of wood into a beautiful piece of furniture, almost a quarter of the wood remains, says director Mark Hendriks of furniture factory Van der Drift in Schaijk. Saw residues. The cabinets and tables are transported to furniture stores all over the Netherlands. The wood residues go to a waste company and usually end up in the incinerator to generate energy.
“Actually, that is a shame,” says Hendriks. “A lot is burned up, while you can make such beautiful things with wood.” Strange, he continues. “We are so used to handing in plastic bottles. But that is not yet a habit with wood.”
Through the shredder
That has to change now. Recently there are two bins in his workshop, for chipboard and for other wood. Wood Loop it says, referring to the plan to close the loop between production and waste. It is a project of the Royal CBM, the trade association for the interior construction and furniture industry.
When the bin is full – it takes a cubic meter of wood – he can report this online to timber supplier Baars & Bloemhoff. They collect the wood in Zaandam, after which Unilin, a large producer of MDF and chipboard, collects it. Unilin throws the material through the shredder and turns it into new plates. It is a solution that involves the entire chain. Simple actually.
But it wasn’t that simple. The fact that this has never happened before is partly due to the Waste Act, says Kees Hoogendijk, director of CBM and chairman of the Wood Loop foundation. “Normally, a panel supplier is not allowed to transport waste. Only certified companies are allowed to do that.” The Waste Act must ensure that waste is processed correctly, but it can also hinder recycling.
End-of-waste instead of regular waste
On Monday there was an important statement from the North Sea Canal Area Environment Agency: the wood residues that Baars & Bloemhoff collects for Wood Loop are no longer waste. They are officially given ‘end-of-waste’ status. The wood can therefore be transported as raw material for new boards.
Hoogendijk calls the ruling a breakthrough and a good precedent for other regions in the Netherlands. The Wood Loop Foundation has now decided that the collection project will officially start.
The Dutch furniture sector makes a considerable claim on the raw material wood; this amounts to 635 million kilos annually. The lion’s share concerns mdf and chipboard. The plan is to collect 100 million kilograms of waste annually. That would result in a reduction of 95,000 tons of CO2 emissions, says Hoogendijk.
Thousands of participants expected
Waste is a cost item for furniture makers, because you buy wood that you don’t use. That is why they try to cut as efficiently as possible. Hendriks: “But no matter how precisely you work, 20 to 25 percent will remain.”
He expects thousands of participants to join Wood Loop. It can be a godsend, especially for small interior builders. “It is difficult for them to get rid of waste wood. A one-man company does not easily put a container on the sidewalk. If everyone places the Wood Loop collection bins, the amount of collected wood quickly adds up.”
Hendriks furniture makers also like to work with oak. There is no Wood Loop collection bin for this. “We try to use the pieces that remain,” he says. “And what remains? This allows people to heat themselves in the winter.”
Read also:
Building without a speck of greenhouse gas? That should be possible with wooden houses
Building with wood can help drastically reduce CO2 emissions from residential construction. Bam Wonen also sees the point in this: in January a factory will be commissioned to produce a thousand wooden homes per year.
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