Unilin minimises loss by adopting Wood Loop

 Friday, September 2, 2022

Unilin minimises loss by collecting waste wood in a efficient way. Up to 20% of the wood used in the Dutch furniture industry goes to waste during the manufacturing process. This wood is still useful to the Unilin Group and the solution lies in “Wood Loop.”

It is clear that this wood must be reintroduced into the chain and the way to do this is through industry-wide collaboration. That is why the Dutch industry association for interior design & furniture industry (CBM) founded Wood Loop: an innovative organisation making it both easy and affordable for wood processors, timber merchants and panel material manufacturers of every size to recycle MDF and chipboards. Unilin Group is more than happy to join this initiative.

Wood Loop in 4 stages:

i. Sorting chipboards and MDF

Previously all waste wood from furniture companies and interior design builders was collected in bulk by waste companies, who sorted it themselves. From now on furniture companies and interior design builders will sort their own residual chipboards and MDF into separate Wood Loop crates. One crate contains up to 360 kilograms of chipboard or 410 kilograms of MDF.

ii. All-in-one collection and delivery

When a Wood Loop crate is full, the interior design builder or furniture company scans the QR code on the crate. The timber merchant who distributes panel material collects the full crate and delivers an empty replacement together with the delivery of new panel material.

iii. Collection and processing

Wood Loop collects the waste wood of the affiliated companies in a single location to enable bulk transport to Unilin Group for processing.

iv. New products or valorisation

With the reusable waste wood Unilin Group manufactures new panels, which are used in a number of products.

New wood loop:

Instead of developing two separate circuits (a timber merchant supplies new panel material and a waste processor collects waste wood for sorting) all stages of the process come together in a single movement. The panel material distributor drops off a new load of panel material and at the same time collects the pre-sorted waste wood. It doesn’t get any more efficient than that.

Tags: flooring industry, flooring trends, recycle wood, Unilin smart living, wood, wood and panel, Wood Loop, wood waste, woodworking and manufacturing, woodworking industry