Prediction of future volumes of waste fibreboard in Europe

Panels made from wood fibres are popular around the world, typical applications range from furniture to fittings, flooring, insulation, and packaging. For stakeholders in the value chain who want to invest in fibreboard recycling, it is of key importance to know what waste fibreboard volumes to expect in the future. An interactive model was developed to answer this need. It is freely accessible via this website (link) and presents information on fibreboard production and waste volumes plus historical data. Users may choose between different regions: the world in total, EU (without UK), France, Germany, and Sweden. The basis are trade data for MDF volumes (including HDF) collected by The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The model shows the volumes (in cubic metres) of the apparent MDF consumption and waste generation. The apparent MDF consumption is the volume of MDF produced in the region of choice plus imports and minus exports. To determine when a product made from MDF becomes waste, the model refers to the lifespan of products. The user can choose between 6 and 15 years, reflecting possible changes in MDF use: While a long lifespan indicates that MDF is mainly being made into long lived products like kitchen furniture, a short lifespan would point to usages like packaging material. To determine lifespans, a crowd wisdom method was applied. For example, the median lifespan of kitchen furniture was found to be approximately 20 years, while that of packaging material to be 1 year.

Model users can further set future consumption trends ranging from optimistic (30% growth in consumption by 2050) to conservative (3% growth in consumption by 2050), or pessimistic scenario (40% reduction in consumption by 2050). In addition, the model allows users to account for increased consumption due to imports of products containing MDF, with options ranging from 0 % to 200 %. This feature addresses the limitations of FAO data, which do not present the full scope of MDF-containing products, such as toys, which are often made with MDF but do not enter in the statistics. In total, the model offers 270 different scenarios for each region.

Efficient sorting technology

Sorting is a key step in transforming waste wood, such as that collected from municipal facilities, into valuable secondary raw materials. In several stages, the wood mix is cleaned, and different wood materials are separated. Effective sorting is crucial when utilising waste wood in fibreboard production, as processing equipment can be quickly and severely damaged by stones or metal pieces. Other typical impurities like plastics cause defects on the surface of the new boards, even if present in small quantities. Until recently, sorting was a major obstacle for fibreboard recycling due to its lack of reliability.

EcoReFibre successfully set up and optimised a sorting line for post-consumer wood waste: After an initial cleaning step to discharge stones, metals, and pieces of other wood based panels such as particleboard, the material is sorted into three fractions: fibreboard, solid wood and the rest. This is accomplished by several advanced sensors, including laser and x-ray based technologies, combined with AI and machine learning. The demonstration confirmed that the sorting line was operating reliably at the required throughput of more than 500 kg*/h. Both the fibreboard and solid wood fractions achieved the target purity of over 95 %.

*For a uniform reference, the target value refers to wood material without any moisture.