Forestville, MD – Much of the continental U.S., especially the eastern half, was totally virgin forest in the 1600s. Vast birch fields, pine stands, and mighty oaks touching the sky as far as the eye could see. By the early 1900s, the United States’ forests had been practically clear-cut to make way for cities and farmland.
Even today, much of the forest in the U.S. is kept up with the intention of being logged. Northern America has a lot of viable, marketable wood; over 52 percent of all the hardwoods in North America are oak an in-demand wood for building and furniture-making. We harvest a lot of wood at home and abroad. Deforestation has already been recognized as an important issue. But what about waste that comes from the wood we use?
Though we harvest a lot of wood, much of that wood further goes to waste when it is being shaped, used, and eventually discarded. Construction projects, in particular, are a big offender in America. About 40 percent of all American waste comes from our bustling construction economy, and a big piece of that waste is wood products.
But there is hope for this one bit of human waste. Groups as small as local parks and as large as internationally-renowned scientists are working on internationally usable solutions for wood waste.
A camp right here in Maryland realized that fallen trees are a wasted opportunity. The Baltimore City Recreation and Parks Department’s ‘Camp Small‘ has created a special zero waste initiative for Baltimore parks and is actually bringing in revenue because of it.
Camp Small is a wood waste collection yard run by the Parks and Rec department, a modest five acres in the Jones Fall Valley. They realized that the collected wood often just rotted in piles in the small lot. Eventually, pricey cleanup had to happen. In 2016, the idea of re-purposing the wood scraps was born. Some of their ideas have included bringing the wood to local high schools for woodworking classes to use.
Camp Small often collects between 8,000 and 14,000 tons of wood waste each year. Now that wood is bringing the department around $110,000 revenue each year. You can check out what kind of work Camp Small does and what scrap wood you can buy from them on their web page.
On an international level, science has some big ideas for worldwide wood waste. A recent study in <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em> reports that an international team of scientists led by Assistant Professor Yan Ning at the National University of Singapore has discovered a way to break wood waste down into amino acids. While there were previously methods of breaking wood waste into amino acids, this new way is reportedly “faster, cheaper, and greener” than old methods. Why is this exciting? Amino acids are one of the crucial building blocks of life. We as humans all need amino acids to live, and get them naturally through many foods we eat.
Just a few applications for lab-created amino acids include: Enriching our food supply, enriching animal feed, a stepping stone to biodegradable plastics, cosmetic ingredients and pharmaceutical ingredients.
See why it’s so exciting now? With both local and international groups working on inventive ways to wood waste, we’re a step closer to fully, smartly using all the resources we harvest from our environment.