What happens to waste wood?

Collection
Waste wood collected from businesses, households and recycling sites is bulked up and then delivered to our wood processing sites.

Separation
Contaminants, such as plastics, stones and metals, are removed by hand and by a mechanical grab.

Shredding
The wood is then fed through a slow-speed shredder, which includes a magnet that extracts other pieces of metal.

This shredded wood usually goes through a high-speed shredder to reduce the particle size further.

Screening
This more finely shredded wood is then screened using a sieving motion to produce three different-sized fractions: oversize (which goes back into the shredder) and two products – fines measuring 0-10mm and chip 10-80mm.

Final separation
Each product then goes through non-ferrous separation using an eddy current and a manual picking station to remove any remaining contaminants.

The wood products are used as fuel by biomass facilities, helping to displace fossil fuels.

Through a similar process, untreated waste wood (e.g. pallets) can provide ‘clean’ wood products for uses such as animal bedding and chipboard.