Wood Waste Generation in the Forest Industry in Nigeria and Prospects for Its Industrial Utilization

Abstract

The forest industry in Nigeria has traversed a variety of circumstances. Prior to I976, round wood overexploitation for export was rife, and this, coupled with high waste generation by the forest led to significant reduction in industrial round wood availability in the forest reserves.  With an average recovery rate of between 45-55%,  the waste generated in the sawmill industry inform of bark, sawdust, trimming, split wood, planer shavings and sanderdust in year 2010 alone was over 1,000,000m³ . In the furniture industry, this varies from 35-45%. At the upper end of the range were the artisanal furniture makers who use crude implements and outdated process technology while the plywood mills generate about 5,000m³ of residues inform of bark, core, sawdust, lillypads, veener clippings and waste, panel trims and sanderdusts in 2010 alone.  The high quantity of waste generation in the industry is caused by factors which differ from one susector to the other.  However, the general trend indicates that average percentage timber recovery is becoming lower while waste generation is on the increase. This is mainly due to the reduced size of average timber available for processing and the increasing need to utilize lesser used wood species whose properties are not well understood.  Others are utilization of old and obsolete equipment, low technical knowhow, low capital input and adoption of crude hand tools, most especially, in the furniture industry. To ensure that the industry survive, it is imperative that wood waste be put to industrial use. Among the way this may be achieved include the use of wood briquettes inplace of firewood, utilization of wood waste to generate industrial energy, utilization of bark for adhesives and foam production and production of medium density fiberboard and engineered wood products from wood waste generated locally.

Keywords: Wood waste, bioproducts, briquettes, sawmill, bark.