WOOD UTILIZATION PRACTICES AND TRENDS

Abstract

A record expansion has taken place in our wood-using industries, during the years since the last war. Production of lumber has almost doubled, from 4½ billion to 8 billion board feet per year. The wood requirements of the pulp industry have expanded from 7 million to about 13 million cords per year, and we have seen veneer and plywood production almost tripled.This tremendous expansion is well-known to all foresters. It has been accompanied by better utilization practices in all of the wood-using industries —greater care in logging, higher recovery from the log in the sawmills, and better yields of pulp. Perhaps the most significant development of all has been the surge towards integration of the sawmill and pulpmill. I refer specifically to the use of sawmill residue for pulp.In 1945, only a few thousand cords of sawmill residue were converted to pulp chips. In 1955, a short 10 years later, over 1 million cords of sawmill residue were manufactured into pulp in British Columbia alone—a veritable industrial revolution having taken place. The importance of this development can best be assessed from two facts: 90 percent of all Kraft pulp produced in British Columbia is now made from chips from sawmill residue; and second, some 38 per cent of all the wood required for pulp in British Columbia now comes from sawmills from material formerly wasted. Over one million acres would be required to grow this amount of material on a perpetual basis.Progress has not been as rapid in Eastern Canada but, last year, 100,000 cords of sawmill material were converted to pulp. Assuming a rate of expansion equal to that of the past ten years, it is estimated that in 25 years, some 4 million cords of sawmill residue material will go, annually, to pulp and board mills. Some feel this estimate to be too conservative.This, perhaps, has been the greatest wood utilization stride of the century. It has been accompanied by other developments, also of great importance in their own right. The growth of the fibreboard industry is a good example, a development which has resulted in an increased use of species not suitable for some types of pulp.It is my firm belief that we can look forward to continued progress towards better and more complete utilization of our forest resources. Two developments, particularly, are bright on the horizon and will be discussed by members of this panel.The first, a relatively new development in Canada, is that of the wood particle board industry and the second, and one which will have far reaching results, is the increased use of hardwoods for pulp.