1.1. Recycling timber is the environmentally friendliest form of timber production and is very common in countries such as Australia and New Zealand where supplies of old wooden structures are plentiful. Timber can be chipped down into wood chips which can be used to power homes or power plants.
2. Timeline
2.1. Timber recycling or Wood recycling is the process of turning waste timber into usable products. Recycling timber is a practice that was popularized in the early 1990s as issues such as deforestation and climate change, prompted both timber suppliers and consumers to turn to a more sustainable timber source.
2.2. Use of recycling timber is not new. As early as 1948, the 100 metres tall tower of Golm transmitter near Potsdam, Germany was built from recycled timber. It stood for 31 years.
3. Challenges
3.1. Some hurdles facing the widespread adoption of recycled timber: Sometimes the ends of wall studs need to be trimmed off to stop decay and cracking, thus resulting in a shorter piece of wood; this trimming may result in pieces of wood that don't meet building codes.
3.2. The trade in recycled timber is not well-established everywhere, so a reliable supply of usable wood may be hard to come by for builders. There may be a stigma associated with using "used" or "cheap" wood that is perceived to be of not as high quality as "new" wood.
4. Benefits
4.1. As timber grows it extracts carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. A little understood and exciting fact is that most of this carbon is remains stored in the timber when it gets made into something else like a house, or dining table or even a wooden boat.
4.2. Recycling one ton of wood saves 18,000 BTUs of heat energy.
5. Long Term Outlook
5.1. To maintain this resource, people need to make sure not to over harvest these trees and they need to make sure to replant enough trees. We can have deforestation, as long as we have reforestation.
