Recoverable wood represen& a huge poten- tial resource base, with as much as 77 million tons of wood being available annually. As shown in a previous article (“Recycling Wood for Value and Volume: Life at the Cutting Edge” in the March 1998 issue), wood proc- essing is a growing industry. Common mar- kets for recovered wood tend to focus on the material as a low-end substitute. Such mar- kets include mulch and fuel applications as well as newer outlets, such as animal bedding and compost bulking agents. Salvage and re- use offer higher-value markets, but are ap- propriate only for selected recovered wood.

Now, a new outlet for recovered wood is being explored. Manufacturers of pulp, pa- per and composition panelboard consume ex- traordinarily large volumes of raw materials. To date, these manufacturing processes have not incorporated recovered wood, relying in- stead on virgin wood and/or recovered paper as feedstocks. This article offers details on a multi-faceted effort that collects and process- es recovered wood into a feedstock for kraft and linerboard manufacture.

A cutting-edge, value-added application Clean, new solid lumber scraps are now mov- ing from construction job sites through sort- ing, collection, processing, shipping and man- ufacturing into high-value kraft paper prod- ucts. This enterprise, undertaken in Wash- ington State, involves a number of different companies.

Microsoft is the owner of a new 690,000-

t-- square-foot Office complex, the Pebble Beach The company carefully monitors markét Campus in Redmond, Washington, con- values and preparation requirements for re- structed in 1996 and 1997. The tirm encour- covered materials that it handles. Construc- aged and directed that job-site recycling be tion Waste Management factors these costs included in the project. A total of $167,684 into the service price it charges construction of savings was generated from recycling 78 contractors. Keeping the collected recyclables percent of the waste on the construction site. separate and clean, through efficient and

Sellen Construction (Seattle) was the prompt handling, enables CWM to command prime contractor on the project and the man- good value (or minimum fees) for the sale of ager of the job-site recycling effort. It was its recyclable materials. The recycling fee for responsible for proper sorting and collection wood that the company incurred in this in- of seven different types of recyclables. More stance was in the range of $20 to $40 per ton. than 3,100 tons of construction waste were (Over time as the overa11 system evolves, this generated ‘on site, with 2,300 tons recycled. fee is likely to shrink.) Of this, 946 tons of wood waste and an equiv- Currently working with eight employees, alent amount of concrete and asphalt were re- six trucks and 38 custom containers, the com- covered. The cost of landfill disposal was pany provides on-site removal of al1 types of $139.46 per ton at the time. The cost of re- construction waste materials, not just wood. covering the wood was $104.04 per ton, for The company hand-loads flat-bed dump a net savings of $30,600. trucks in residential, multi-family and light

Construction Waste Management, Inc. commercial projects. It uses customized con- (Woodenville, Washington) was the recycling tainers and trucks for larger commercial and collector. The firm uses a highly motivated industrial job sites, such as Microsoft’s Peb- work crew along with custom-designed equip- ble Beach project. When on the job, Con- ment and coordination to provide fast and struction Waste Management trucks move convenient job-site service. Its approach is containers around to the points of heaviest to recycle at maximum levels with high qual- waste generation. The company’s smaller, ity control. However, it also aims to improve flexible recycling containers service less ac- work flow and safety levels on job sites by cessible locations within the building shell rapidly moving waste out of the way of real and can be lifted by crane to the necessary construction activity. high-rise working floors or lowered into ex- Preston Home-Brine owns Fluxion Enterprises LLC, a Seattle company. The firm works with manu- facturers and processors to implement strategies to increase product value, improve productivity or re- duce costs. He has 20 years’ experience in the recycling sector, working in recycling centers, process- ing plants, and in developing markets for recycled materials.

m Resource Recycling June 1998

5,743936 5,744,35 1 .x744,503 5,746,324 $746,378 5,746,802 5,746,885 5,747,547 5,750,006

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Standard economic . model sought The Northeast Recycling Council (Brattle- boro, Vermont) is launching a study to ob- tain statistics on the size of recycling and reuse businesses in the Northeast. NRC will develop a standardized economic modeling approach and refine the overa11 methodolo-

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The National Recycling Coalition (Alexan- dria, Virginia) will manage Phase Two. By co-sponsoring the study, state agencies and other organizations can cost effectively ob- tain data covering a particular geographic re- gion or industry segment.

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cling scene. The publicly traded con?panyr . has signed an agreement to buy FCR Inc. (Charlotte, North Carolina) for $65 million. The latter firm operates more than two dozen recycling plants, with sales of ap- proximately $100 million per year and 800 employees. These holdings include 18 ma- terials recovery facilities (MRFs) in 10 states, with a combined volume of 650,000 tons per year of al1 types of recyclables. KTI already handles 500,000 tons annual- ly of recyclables at MRFs in Boston, Chica- go and Newark.

Circle 250 on RR service card Circle 18 on RR service card

Resource Recycling June 1998 m

- cavated foundation areas. The intermediate processor for the Pebble

Beach project was Bobby Wolford Truck- ing (Woodinville, Washington). The firm re- ceives recovered wood and segregates the material by source, contamination leve1 and specitication into piles for two markets: pulp and paper, and boiler fuel. A third pile is for residue. The company then grinds the mate- rial in each pile into a consistent product to meet size, contamination, moisture and oth- er specifications of customers. The firm charges collectors a recycling fee to deliver to its plant separate loads of unprocessed, but properly sorted wood.

Northwest Wood and Fibre Recovery, Inc. (Aubum, Washington) buys Wolford’s higher-quality material for a nominal amount. NWI% is a wood processor that has, over the past three years, developed a plant specifi- cally to handle cleaner types of urban wood waste and process them for the pulp and pa- per industry. This plant handles over 5,000 tons per month of new dimensional lumber scraps, remanufacturing residuals, pallets, crating and panelboard scraps. The compa- ny has developed another primary process- ing plant outside of Portland, Oregon in the last year. This facility receives similar types of clean wood waste streams but produces re- cycled feedstock specitically for the fiber pan- elboard industry.

The firm is affrliated with Walsh & Sons Trucking (Gaston, Oregon), which for more than three decades has hauled residuals from saw mills to fiber manufacturing plants in the Pacific Northwest. This trucking experience and operational base add to the strength of the recycling division.

NWFR operates a very sophisticated plant in Aubum that is capitalized at over $2 mil- lion. The facility puts out two high-grade wood feedstock product grades and sells sev- eral residual grades to fuel and other lower- value.markets.

The yield of higher-grade products is slow- ly being pushed higher and higher in the plant through incrementa1 improvements and changes. The fin-n is working with its suppli- er and customer partners to optimize the process and improve the quality of its product.

The market for the company’s high-grade products is generally in the range of $25 to $50 per ton (f.a.b. processor). The actual val- ue depends on market conditions and con- tractual relationships. If NWFR can keep vol- umes up and the processing and shipping op- erations running smoothly and at efficient lev- els, the firm can remain viable. It is clear, however, that much more development of the process and product must occur in the near future.

Longview Fibre Company is the end user of recycled wood. Based in Longview, Wash-

ington, the company manufactures kraft cor- rugating medium and linerboard products, which se11 for $200 to $500 per ton at the wholesale, unconverted level, depending upon market conditions.

This is a huge paper mill, putting out over 100,000 tons of paperboard products per month. The mil1 uses over 180,000 tons per month of fiber feedstock as well as a signif- icant amount of biomass tiber for fuel in its boilers. Of the total amount of tiber feedstock currently used by the mill, roughly 84 per- cent is virgin wood chips. Slightly more than 25,000 tons per month, or 14 percent, are re- covered corrugated containers, and 2 percent, or over 3,000 tons per month, is recovered wood. The recovered wood feedstock is made up of 1,200 to 2,000 tons per month of total- ly clean, chipped, high-grade furnish and 1,000 to 2,000 tons per month of very clean, ground, semi-high-grade fumish. The mil1 also uses 5,000 to 7,000 tons per month of re- covered wood for boiler fuel.

Mill executives are very pleased with the high-grade recycled-wood furnish and are “working with” the semi-high grade. How- ever, much more work needs to be done, and they are not presently interested in expand- ing the supply and use of recycled wood.

Lessons learned Four lessons have been learned about the de-

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m Resource Recycling June 1998 Circle 93 on RR service card

velopment of a wood recycling enterprise. First, products, whether finished or feed-

stock, are specific. Everyone in the value stream must understand that they are work- ing with one or several particular product ap- plications that must compete in a very real marketplace (see box for list of potential end uses). At every stage of the value stream there is (or should be) a material specification that is based upon the needs of the next-stage mar- ket. Those needs include product perfor- mance, process requirements, consistent qual- ity control over the material and competitive cost. As the market changes, these specifi- cations vary somewhat in response to volatile market conditions. They will become more quantified, consistent and stringent over the long run.

Second, long-term working partnerships are crucial. The many players up and down the value stream constantly need to be work- ing together to understand what drives value downstream, what the specifications are for the upstream suppliers and how to keep the financia1 margins workable at al1 stages. Of course, as the market changes, the entire en- terprise up and down the stream must adjust accordingly, while maintaining both high quality and low cost. The partners in this ef- fort need to communicate well and share in the development responsibilities at allstages.

Third, recycling systems must be opti-

mized. This entails improvement in many el- ements, including production and processing technology, equipment, new product devel- opment capability and material characteriza- tion. Knowledge of material properties, han- dling concepts and best management prac-

tices also are necessary. These improvements must be done in a way that engenders cost ef- fectiveness, consistent high quality in mate- rial and flexibility in operation.

Lastly, the enterprise requires continuous improvement and a long-term commitment. The development of a broad-based and sus- tainable wood recycling system has only just begun. It will continue to require an invest- ment of funds, expertise and collaboration over quite a number of years. Wood and fiber markets will continue to be volatile as they always have been. The development of wood recycling enterprises must be steady and fo- cused.

A sound recycling system cari’‘’ be built overnight Severa1 conclusions can be generated from this and other case studies.

The required wood recycling infrastruc- ture and necessary management practices are sophisticated and expensive, and cannot be created in a short time period. Such changes put extraordinary demands upon recycling businesses but also upon generators of mate- rial, collection programs, solid waste agen- cies and industrial sectors. Construction and demolition contractors, forestry operations, landscaping businesses, biomass-fuel com- bustion operations and wood product manu- facturing plants are affected. Indeed, the end

m Resource Recycling June 1998

circle 114 on RR service card

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Ciicle 50 on RR service card

users of the material have to be involved from the start.

To be sustained, the system has to be driv- en by demand from end users. These tirms must remain viable in the current market with their existing raw material base and profitable enough to generate the investment funds to undertake research and to reto01 for utiliza- tion of an expanded resource base that in- cludes recycled wood. Processors must im- prove their quality-control techniques and meet evolving market specifications. The overa11 transition is likely to take 10 to 20 years, if it proceeds straightforwardly.

A viable wood recycling system is com- plex, expensive and diflicult to build. Those at the cutting edge of developing a self-sus- taining, demand-driven wood recycling in- dustry with value-added markets are dealing with a sea of difticulties: n technical and management complexity n cost n continua1 change H constant challenge n new forms of collaboration between gen-

erators, collectors, processors and end users. Yet, cutting-edge wood recycling enter-

prises are demonstrating that such difftculties can be overcome. Indeed, they will be over- come, in time, with thoughtful and persistent effort. RR

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