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Carbon Sink When wood rots in landfill or is burned, greenhouse gases are released and contribute to climate change. Trees left standing act as carbon sinks that absorb these gases. Approximately 25% of the fresh weight of timber is carbon so if a forest grows at 10 cubic metres per hectare per year this would be equivalent to 10 fresh tonnes, 5 dry tonnes and 2.5 tonnes of carbon. Buying a recycled timber product (RCP) reduces deforestation and retains the locked in carbon. The UK is one of the world’s largest consumers of industrial timber and imports wood and its products from over 100 countries as less than 20% is home-grown. We then need to use this resource wisely but a survey in the West Midlands suggests that the wood waste content of industrial waste disposal alone is about 2.5% of the estimated 50 million tonnes of waste dumped every year, which equates to 1.25 million tonnes of wood waste per annum. This does not include household or forestry waste, which alone is estimated at 1.5 million tonnes per year. (Waste Watch 2002) Recycled Content Product (RCP) Much has been said of recycling in the media but it is up to us the designers and manufacturers to bring them into the mainstream rather than as ‘add on’ extras. Purchasing ‘recycled content products’ helps to ‘close the loop’. Timber Imports Tropical Timbers Over 46% of the world’s old growth forest has been destroyed but still in 1999 16 million hectares was lost. (World Resources Inst.) The main cause of this destruction is the illegal logging practices of the source countries supported by the fact that as the law currently stands, even if illegally sourced timber is identified, it is not necessarily illegal to import it. Less than 1% of the total European imports of tropical timber come from sources, which have been independently certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). It is therefore possible that over 99% of tropical timber being imported into Europe may come from unsustainable sources. The UK is the largest importer of illegal tropical timber in Europe. It is estimated that in 1999 it imported 20% of the EU’s illegal tropical timber, which comprised approximately 60% of the UK’s tropical timber imports. As a result, the UK was responsible for illegally logging 130,000 hectares of tropical forest. (European League Table of Imports of Illegal Tropical Timber. Briefing-Friends of the Earth 2002) There seems to be a minefield of information from various bodies. From people we know personally who have visited Indonesia and Malaysia there is a large amount of uncertified timber being felled for the Asian market that goes unrecorded. Whether this ends up in Europe we cannot say. One has to appreciate wood as a wonderful resource but that trees are our lungs and we are unwise to treat them as finite. |
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