Woodchipping in Australia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Woodchipping is the act and industry of chipping wood for pulp. Timber is converted to woodchip

Woodchip

Woodchip may refer to:* the product of Woodchipping* Woodchips, a solid-biomass fuel* Ingrain wallpaper...

s and sold, primarily, for paper manufacture. In Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, woodchips are produced by clearcutting

Clearcutting

Clearcutting, or clearfelling, is a controversial forestry/logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Clearcutting, along with shelterwood and seed tree harvests, is used by foresters to create certain types of forest ecosystems and to promote select species that...

or thinning

Thinning

Thinning is a term used in agricultural sciences to mean the removal of some plants, or parts of plants, to make room for the growth of others.- Forestry :...

of native forests or plantations. In other parts of the world, forestry practices such as short rotation coppice

Short rotation coppice

Short Rotation Coppice is coppice grown as an energy crop. This woody solid biomass can be used in applications such as district heating, electric power generating stations, alone or in combination with other fuels.- Species used :...

are the usual methods adopted.

Uses of wood chips includes the manufacture of particle board

Particle board

Particle board, or particleboard , is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood particles, such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even saw dust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded...

(or 'chip board

Chipboard

Chipboard may refer to:* A type of paperboard generally made from reclaimed paper stock; the term generally used in the US** White lined chipboard, a grade of paperboard* Particle board, a type of engineered wood known as "chipboard" in some countries...

') and other engineered wood

Engineered wood

Engineered wood, also called composite wood, man-made wood, or manufactured board; includes a range of derivative wood products which are manufactured by binding the strands, particles, fibers, or veneers of wood, together with adhesives, to form composite materials...

s, mulch

Mulch

In agriculture and gardening, is a protective cover placed over the soil to retain moisture, reduce erosion, provide nutrients, and suppress weed growth and seed germination. Mulching in gardens and landscaping mimics the leaf cover that is found on forest floors....

and fuel

Wood fuel

Wood fuel is wood used as fuel. The burning of wood is currently the largest use of energy derived from a solid fuel biomass. Wood fuel can be used for cooking and heating, and occasionally for fueling steam engines and steam turbines that generate electricity. Wood fuel may be available as...

Sources and process

Historically, the primary sources of wood chips in Australia

Australia

has been the extensive Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

hardwood forests found throughout temperate areas of the country. In more recent times, a significant proportion comes from managed hardwood and softwood plantations.

During the late 1960s and 70s the high demand for paper and the relatively low cost and availability of the native forests made the establishment of a woodchipping industry a viable proposition. Conversely, the establishment of a woodchipping industry made it economically feasible to clearfell areas of mixed or substandard forest that could not otherwise have been felled. Clearfelling is a controversial forest practice in Australia, and opponents of it argue that the woodchipping industry is culpable for its continuation.

Woodchips are converted into a fibre which can be made into various grades of paper or rayon

Rayon

Rayon is a manufactured regenerated cellulose fiber. Because it is produced from naturally occurring polymers, it is neither a truly synthetic fiber nor a natural fiber; it is a semi-synthetic or artificial fiber. Rayon is known by the names viscose rayon and art silk in the textile industry...

for the textile industry. Most processing and value adding takes place outside of Australia.

The Australian economy benefits directly from a low cost and high volume export commodity.

Usage

Wood chips, as a by-product of the timber industry, have been used in many ways for centuries, for example as a material for the production of wallpaper

Wallpaper

Wallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. It is usually sold in rolls and is put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...

or as a disposable floor covering in butchers shop or drinking houses. Wood pulp

Wood pulp

Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibres from wood, fibre crops or waste paper. Wood pulp is the most common raw material in papermaking.-History:...

is the primary market for the woodchipping industry in Australia.

The practice, known as woodchipping, was to make use of the entire plant in the production of wood chips. This was then converted into paper, hardwood pulp is mainly used for printing paper and softwood pulp is added for good quality. An energy intensive process, it also involved the use of bleach

Bleach

Bleach refers to a number of chemicals that remove color, whiten, or disinfect, often via oxidation. Common chemical bleaches include household chlorine bleach , lye, oxygen bleach , and bleaching powder...

es and other toxic chemicals. This stage of the process, known as Kraft pulping, was primarily performed in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

and elsewhere. High demand for paper products saw purpose built bulk carrier

Bulk carrier

A bulk carrier, bulk freighter, or bulker is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo, such as grains, coal, ore, and cement in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrier was built in 1852, economic forces have fueled the development of these ships,...

s increase the export of woodchips from Australia to Japan.

The separation of the chipping stage and the pulping and paper mills required the supply of energy usually sourced from by-products of the process. Additional energy expenditure is found in the shipping

Shipping

Shipping has multiple meanings. It can be a physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo, by land, air, and sea. It also can describe the movement of objects by ship.Land or "ground" shipping can be by train or by truck...

of raw materials and export of the finished product.

Logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
Woodchipper
Woodchipper
A tree chipper or wood chipper is a machine used for reducing wood into smaller parts, such as wood chips or sawdust. They are often portable, being mounted on wheels on frames suitable for towing behind a truck or van. Power is generally provided by an internal combustion engine from to...

Woodchip mill companies and locations

Eden, New South Wales
Eden, New South Wales
Eden is a coastal town in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. The town, south of the state capital Sydney near the border with Victoria, is located between Nullica Bay to the south and Calle Calle Bay, the northern reach of Twofold Bay, and built on undulating land adjacent to a...
North Shore, Victoria
North Shore, Victoria
North Shore is an industrial and residential suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The suburb overlooks Corio Bay. A small residential area is east of the North Shore railway station with a few neighbourhood shops....
Gunns
Gunns
Gunns Limited is a major forestry enterprise located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1875 by brothers John and Thomas Gunn, it is one of Australia's oldest companies. It has over 900 square kilometres of plantations, mainly eucalyptus trees. It is Tasmania’s largest private land-owner...
W.A. Chip & Pulp Co
Wesley Vale pulp mill
Wesley Vale pulp mill
The Wesley Vale pulp mill was a planned kraft process pulp mill was to be built near Wesley Vale in northern Tasmania in the late 1980s. The claim that waste would have been generated by the mill and present a threat to Tasmania's World Heritage listed forests became a significant environmental and...

Woodchip critics and opponents

Australian Conservation Foundation
Australian Conservation Foundation
The Australian Conservation Foundation is an Australian non-profit, community-based environmental organisation focused on advocacy, policy research and community outreach.-History:...
Campaign to Save Native Forests
Campaign to Save Native Forests
The Campaign to Save Native Forests was the name of a grassroots organisation which grew from a campaign started in Perth, Western Australia, in 1975, as a response to the development of a woodchipping industry in the south-west Jarrah and Karri forests of Western Australia...
Conservation Council of Western Australia
Conservation Council of Western Australia
The Conservation Council of Western Australia is the umbrella body for conservation groups and organisations in Western Australia. It has been the co-ordinator, publisher and guiding body for issues of woodchipping in the South West of Western Australia, the logging of old growth forests, as well...
Great Walk Networking
Great Walk Networking
Great Walk Networking is a bushwalking community in Western Australia. The Great Walk started in 1988 as a protest walk from Denmark to Parliament House in Perth, to raise awareness of logging in Western Australia's old growth forests....
Liberals for Forests
Liberals for Forests
Liberals for Forests is an Australian political minor party. It has contested both state and federal elections in recent years, but has only achieved one elected representative - Janet Woollard in Western Australia...
South West Forests Defence Foundation
South West Forests Defence Foundation
South West Forests Defence Foundation is a group that has been involved with three decades of involvement with the conservation of the Jarrah and Karri forests of the South West region of Western Australia....
Western Australian Forests Alliance

External links

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Sources and process

Usage

See also

Woodchip mill companies and locations

Woodchip critics and opponents

Further reading

External links