Wood waste minimization in the timber sector of Ghana: a systems approach to reduce environmental impact

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of minimizing wood waste to reduce the environmental impact in the timber sector i.e. forestry and timber industry subsystem of Ghana. This study is a follow up of 3 earlier studies on the timber sector. These studies consistently identified minimizing wood waste as a major point of departure for reducing the environmental impact of timber sector of Ghana. When wood waste generated by the 5 wood products were further compared for 3 different functional units (m3, kg or €). The chosen functional unit was sensitive to the wood waste impact results. The results of our study show that combining technological changes, good operational practices and recycling measures could reduce wood waste by approximately 50%. We therefore conclude that the reduction of wood waste in the timber sector may also reduce the other environmental impacts in the timber sector. Since our earlier studies established that wood wastes may function as a reasonable single indicator for land use as proxy for biodiversity loss and the other impact categories.