Engineered Wood Product: Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) Demonstration at Neerabup LVL plant north of Perth WA.
Sawn and kiln dried timber at the high technology Hyne softwood sawmill at Tumbarumba, NSW.
Visy Paper Mill at Adelong, NSW
Plantations in AUstralia
Plantation Products
Timber grown in plantations is used for a variety of products that we all use in our every day lives:
Sawn timber
The majority of sawn timber sold in Australia is used to make the wall frames and roof trusses that form the structure of most of the nation’s new homes. Sawn timber is also used extensively in the internal fitout of houses and other buildings including in flooring, door and window frames and paneling. Furniture, landscaping, packaging and a wide range of other products are also made from sawntimber.
Some 9 million cubic metres of softwood sawlogs were harvested from Australian plantations in 2004-05 and the majority of these logs were processed in Australian sawmills to produce some 3.5 million cubic metre of sawn timber. Sawmilling residues including offcuts, sawdust and shavings are used in the production of a number of the other products discussed below.
The volume of sawlogs harvested from hardwood plantations in Australia is small but increasing. Some 270,000 cubic metres of hardwood sawlogs were harvested in 2005-06. There have been difficulties associated with sawing logs from hardwood plantations because they are generally smaller and faster grown than those traditionally harvested from native forests. However, these problems are being overcome as new technologies and new techniques are developed and applied.
Woodchips, pulp and paper
Wood fibre is the primary component of paper products. Modern paper making is a complex and large scale process. The first stage of paper making involves debarking and chipping of logs. The woodchips are then broken down or “pulped” using various mechanical and/or chemical processes. Water is removed from the pulp on a paper machine to produce the various types of paper. These stages of processing may be carried out in one location or the intermediate products, woodchips and pulp, may be transported to different location for further processing.
In 2004-05 Australian paper manufacturers produced more than 3 million tones of paper including 1.8 million tones of packaging and industrial papers, 600,000 tonnes of printing and writing paper, 400,000 tonnes of newsprint and nearly 200,000 tonnes of tissue products.
Approximately half of the fibre used to make this paper came from recovered (recycled) paper. In addition, some 2 million tonnes of pulplogs from Australian plantations (softwood and hardwood) was used in Australian paper manufacturing along with sawmill residues and logs harvested from regrowth forests.
Australia is also a major exporter of woodchips that are used for paper making in other countries.
Panel Boards and Engineered Wood Products
Plantation grown wood is used to produce a wide range of panel board and engineered wood products. Wood is broken down in various ways and reconstituted in combination with heat and various glues to produce particle board, medium density fibreboard (MDF), hardboard, plywood (structural, marine, formwork) and laminated veneer lumber. These products are used for a wide variety of purposes including flooring, interior and exterior lining of buildings, structural boards and beams and in furniture.
In 2004-05 Australia produced nearly 2 million cubic metres of wood based panels (plywood, particle board and MDF). Most of this production was obtained from plantation grown softwood logs.
