CASCADING OF PINE WOOD

Resource-cascading, the sequential exploitation of the full potential of a resource during its use, is one of the ways to improve efficiency of raw materials use. In this article it is shown that cascading of t he renewable resource pinewood can lead to large savings in primary re source use. For pine wood a cascade of five or six steps can be set up which extends the time that the resource is in use from about 75 to m ore than 350 years. Cascading also means that, when using wood, the mo ment that carbon dioxide is emitted, is postponed. This is interesting in relation to global warming. In the Netherlands, a country where la bour is relatively expensive, parts of this cascade are realised in pr actice. Until now, however only a small percentage of the total amount of wood is cascaded. To favour cascading of wood several options may be considered, such as eco-taxation of resources, prohibition to dump waste-wood and a 'wood-bank' showing which kind of wood with certain p roperties is available at a certain moment. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevie r Science B.V.