Concern on Wood Waste Utilization: Environment and Economic Evaluation

This chapter highlights the concern on wood waste utilization regarding on environment and economic evaluation. Wood waste is the part of the effluents that can comprise discarded wood, whole trees, stumps, or clipped branches. Wood waste is also derived from downstream (sawmills) to furniture, boards, and moldings. Forest waste (waste from deforestation) and residues from wood processing plants are also two types of wood waste associated with sawmill operations. Wood waste can be decreased without negatively impacting the world’s forests by improving the productivity of primary wood consumption and using raw wood resources produced from sustainable forest management [1‐5]. Due to the defects in the felled trees, the production of sawn timber is considered wasted. Only about 47% of the logs that reach the sawmill are converted into salable timber. The remaining residue containing 33% wood chips, 7% sawdust, 8% shavings, and 5% bark should be discarded or otherwise used [6]. The timber industry is an important industry in Malaysia. At the same time, the timber industry has a significant impact on the environment in general (air, water, and soil) and in particular on land and resource management. So, we must give emphasis to the solution. For example, the adoption of cleaner technology and waste minimization (Krajnc and Domac in Energy Policy 35:6010–6020, 2007). The main factors of environmental degradation are recognized as:

The vast amount of waste generated from wood processing operations in many countries presents challenging opportunities for utilizing wood waste. Consequently, the timber sector is anticipated to see both timber costs and waste disposal costs rise. Subsequently, wood waste is it is anticipated that wood waste will gradually become a valuable resource. Wood waste is a sustainable, inexpensive, and widely accessible source of energy that has the potential to replace fossil fuels in a variety of uses, made up of heat, power, and biofuels. The expanded use of agricultural biomass can aid agriculturally based countries in achieving energy security and providing jobs without contributing to environmental damage [1, 4, 7, 8].