Utilization of Wood Waste 



CARL A. KUPFER, B. S. P. 

 Forest Examiner, U. ,S. Forest Service. 



Imagine if you can a slab fire which has been kept alive day 

 and night almost continuously over a period of 55 years by the 

 refuse from a single large sawmill. Try to realize that this is 

 an actual mill operating in the redwood region of California 

 and that it is only one of many mills of similar size. You can 

 not then help wondering why so much potentially valuable material 

 must be wasted. 



In a country like this with its immense supplies of raw ma- 

 terial and its relatively small population per unit area the answer 

 is not easy. Distribution for fuel is prohibited by hauling costs. 

 Smaller countries with fewer resources and more dense popula- 

 tion, with highly specialized industries, with demands caused by 

 a keener struggle for necessities and luxuries, have been driven 

 to closer consideration of the question and have to a great 

 extent solved it. For example, wood waste in the densely popu- 

 lated portions of Europe means sawdust, and not much of this 

 relatively unimportant material is actually wasted. It finds use 

 as fuel in natural form, in briquettes, and as gas resulting from 

 distillation. In combination with binding and cementing sub- 

 stances such as glue, albumin, blood and resin it forms plastic 

 materials, artificial wood and xylolith or woodstone. In cheap 

 but often very durable linoleums it takes the place of cork, a more 

 valuable tree product. Various processes of manufacture produce 

 from sawdust oxalic acid, acetic acid, formalyn, tannin, dyes, 

 grain alcohol, wood alcohol, oils, tar, charcoal, etc. 



In the United States until quite recently wood waste has meant 

 practically all of the wood produced by the forest which could 

 not be converted into salable lumber and from such lumber into 

 buildings, railroad cars, ties, vehicles, furniture, fixtures, bar- 

 rels, boxes and so on down through the list to knobs for tea 

 kettle lids and the dowels which are concealed in many larger 

 wooden commodities. In terms of a tree the sum of these repre- 

 sents about one-third its volume. The other two-thirds constitute 

 wood waste. Specifically, wood waste consists of stumps, tops, 

 broken logs, inferior species and other material left in the woods, 

 of sawdust, bark, slabs, edgings, trimmings, pooly sawn boards 

 and lumber depreciated in seasoning, all incident to manufacture ; 

 of sawdust, shavings and blocks which do not find use when 

 the lumber is remanufactured into things people need. 



The refuse left in the woods is not only lost but becomes 

 a menace to the remaining .forest by harboring disease and in- 

 sects and by serving as tinder which a stroke of lightning or 



