Wood Recycling in Washington

(Editor’s Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Linkup, an e-newsletter by King County in Washington.)

A significant amount of recyclable urban wood is ending up in landfills. Urban wood includes dimensional lumber and engineered wood scrap from construction and some demolition activities, pallets, crates, finished and unfinished furniture, manufacturing scrap and some roofing and siding. Increasingly, organizations are developing new markets for recycled urban wood in efforts to reduce this waste and make use of this valuable resource.

Wood makes up nearly 17% of the material going to landfills in the United States.1 It also represents up to half of residential new construction debris in the waste stream in the United States.2 In King County, excluding Seattle, an estimated 78,000 tons of recyclable urban wood was disposed as waste in 2009.3

Local companies continue to find new uses for recyclable urban wood, while also facing new regulations and changing markets. NewWood
Elma, Wash.-based NewWood is gearing up for the launch of their new wood-plastic composite building material in early 2011. NewWood will be composed of 99% recycled urban waste materials that would otherwise end up in landfills or be used as fuel. It is intended to have the flexibility and dimensional strength of wood products, such as cedar siding, with the durability and waterproof qualities of plastic.

The core of what makes NewWood different from all-plastic or all-wood boards is its unique combination of the structural qualities of wood fiber with the water- and insect- resistant qualities of plastic. Rather than using wood “flour” mixed decking production, the company uses a patented process that encapsulates larger wood fibers in plastic.

In order to produce the NewWood product, Puget Sound area companies are supplying the raw materials–clean wood recovered from construction and demolition debris and polyethylene plastic film, such as grocery bags or industrial plastic wrap used to ship products on pallets.

For example, the plastic bags collected in curbside recycling or grocery stores could end up coming back as part of a NewWood board. NewWood representatives have also talked with the State of Washington about accepting materials from Washington State Correctional Industries, which is interested in supplying NewWood with the wood framing from recycled mattresses, and finding a use for the NewWood board in the office furniture it constructs for government agencies.

NewWood will initially be marketed as a 7/16-in. thick 4-ft by 8-ft sheet, similar in size to a sheet of plywood. It has advantages over traditional wood products in that it can be nailed to within a quarter-inch of any edge without splitting, and is water- and insect-resistant. Unlike some other wood alternatives, such as vinyl siding or fiber cement board, NewWood can be sawed and assembled safely with traditional carpenters tools.

NewWood is currently housed in a plant in Elma, Wash., which was initially built as the home of a nuclear power generation facility by the Washington Public Power Supply (now Energy Northwest). The plant was converted to produce a wood-plastic siding product for Boise Cascade, but the project stalled and the facility and production equipment sat unused for a number of years. NewWood owners will put the equipment back into production.

Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) Standard—The EPA is proposing new rules for emissions on boilers, requiring businesses using biomass boilers to use maximum control technology to reduce toxic emissions. If approved, the change in the MACT Standard will affect what type of fuel source can be used for industrial boilers and process heaters. This could affect urban wood markets because it could eliminate certain types of construction and demolition wood as a fuel source. A final decision on the rule is expected to be published in December.

Wood Pulp—Local construction and demolition recycling companies have reported that as of last March, the new owners of Cascade Pacific Pulp are not interested in continuing to pursue the post-consumer pulp market. Cascade Pacific Pulp had been taking in a large amount of urban wood to produce pulp that was ultimately used in high quality recycled copy paper, but it has determined the cost of recycling outweighs the benefits to its business enterprise.

Seattle Steam—Seattle Steam is a privately-owned utility that provides heat to approximately 200 buildings in Seattle’s Central Business District and First Hill neighborhoods. More than 110 years old, the company produces thermal energy from five boilers located in two plants in downtown Seattle. In the fall 2009, the company installed a biomass boiler that burns urban wood from local sources. Cedar Grove Composting and a variety of other local wood processors supply their fuel. At full load, the plant burns 250 tons of waste wood each day, said Stan Gent, Seattle Steam president and CEO.

In comparison with others that use urban wood as fuel, changes in the MACT standards will not impact Seattle Steam as strongly. “Seattle Steam’s current air permit exceeds the MACT emission standards, so it is not a high concern,” Gent said.

1 “Successful approaches to recycling urban wood waste.” Solid Waste Association of North America, 2002.
2 United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Basic Information About Wood Waste.”
3 King County Solid Waste Division esti

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