How Wood Dependent Are You?

[Jeff]

How Wood Dependent Are You?

by Dr. Jim Bowyer, University of Minnesota, Department of Forest Products

There is a widespread—and incorrect—belief that wood use is declining in the United States. The fact is, our per capita consumption of wood has risen more than 31 percent in the last 20 years. Today, wood is one of the nation's most important raw materials.

The importance of wood can be shown by examining how much wood we use in comparison to other material. For example, the weight of wood we use every year exceeds the combined weight of all metals, all plastics, and Portland cement!

One reason we don't fully understand the amount of wood we use is that as products become more sophisticated, many are hardly recognizable as wood. Other products are so common that we take them for granted.

To check out your own wood dependence, start looking around your home. The structural shell—walls, roof rafters, floor joists—is probably wood. So are the roof and floor decks. The roofing felt is most likely asphalt-treated wood fiber. Even the paint on the house may contain rosins and resins that can be traced back to distilling of softwood chips.

The outside walls are probably wood in the form of plywood, oriented strandboard, or insulation board. The siding may be lumber, hardboard, or wood shakes. More than likely, the windows have wood frames. The gypsum board that forms the inside walls and ceiling has a heavy paper facing—a wood product. Other common wood features include doors, molding, trim, and kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Counter tops of Formica or another laminate usually cover a wood particleboard core, and the laminate itself is made by mixing wood fiber with plastic. The floors may be wood, but if not, the carpet or vinyl floor covering is almost certainly placed over a wooden subfloor.

Most of your furniture is probably wood. Your curtains, draperies, and bedspreads could be a rayon blend. Rayon is made from cellulose, which in turn often comes from wood. The plastic of your telephone contains finely ground wood flour. In the basement you may have a wooden work bench, shelves, and pegboard. If you have a Ping-pong table, it probably has a hardboard top. The faces of the wood paddles are covered with natural rubber, made of latex that is tapped from trees in the tropics. The Ping-pong ball itself is made completely of celluloid, which comes from wood cellulose.

Next, look at the family car. Wood will be difficult to recognize, but it's there. The door liners (the inside part of the door covered with cloth or vinyl) are probably thin sheets of hardboard. So too may be the deck between the back seat and the back window. The dashboard may be made of molded hardboard. The bucket seats, trunk liner, and inside exposed surfaces may be plastic that contains up to 50 percent wood, a filler that greatly reduces cost. The roof insulation and the insulation between the engine compartment and the inside of the car are usually a fire-resistant wood-fiber mat. The steel radial tires contain rayon. Even the oil in the crankcase was probably brought to your service station through wood-based substances used to control the consistency of oil-well drilling mud!

If you get into the car and head for the supermarket, you'll see wood almost everywhere along the way. Even the concrete road surface most likely contains agents coming from wood that help strengthen cured concrete.

At the store you'll see paper boxes, packaging, and labels, almost all made from wood fiber—about one-third of which is recycled. Notebook paper, tablets, pencils, and natural rubber pencil erasers are wood or forest based. Photographic film is made of cellulose acetate. The flavoring in vanilla ice cream and cookies may be vanillin, a food additive made as a byproduct of wood-pulping operations. At the checkout stand, you'll see wood-fiber books, newspapers, and magazines. Even the check you hand to the clerk is a wood product.

If you pay close attention for a day or two, you'll notice many more items made entirely or partially of wood. A remarkable and incredibly useful material, wood has a huge impact on our lives.

From Tree Talk 2, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry. This article first appeared in The Minnesota Volunteer, March–April 1992.

[DonT]

I recently had the opportunity to meet a man that has lessened his dependancy on wood.His house is made of straw bales.We received a call for a fully involved structure fire.Upon arriving we found the roof down and the interior a blaze but strangly the fire was not burning out threw the walls anywhere.After we doused the fire we relized all the exterior walls of the house were straw bales bound together with chicken wire with some sort of parging on the outside.The owner said the builder "guaranteed that the walls would not burn as they had been treated with a fire retardent material.I am told that this is becoming a alternative to wood frames and offers excellent R-value.See something new everyday.On the way back to the hall,I suggested to the guy's that the next house we encountered like this that we leave the hoses on the trucks and just huff and puff and blowwwww the house in.Yes i know I have a warped sense of humour  DONT

[Frank_Pender]

Very, as the temps the last few nights has been in the mid teens and dry as a bone.  the humidity has been hanging around 23 to 27 % with a high today of 45*. ;D

[wiam]

DonT   that is not a warped sense of humor.  That just sound like a fire fighter.  I know, I am one.
William

[RavioliKid]

There is a new house going up on an empty lot a few houses down from me. It sure looks good to see all that wood!

[SwampDonkey]

There has been a bit of a war on 'rayon made from bamboo' versus 'bamboo'. And here is one of the consequences. "Walmart and Kohl’s are paying a combined $5.5 million in settlements after the Federal Trade Commission said the retailers falsely marketed dozens of sheets and other home textile products as made of environmentally friendly bamboo."

Walmart, Kohl's settle over 'eco-friendly' rayon products - ABC News

True eco-friendly bamboo is retted bamboo fibre and rarely is it available in the NA market, where as rayon from bamboo is a chemical intensive process and is readily available. Retting bamboo into fibres for yarn is a similar process to retting flax into linen. The difference matters a lot to some companies. And that also includes small hand weaving businesses.

[thecfarm]

This was posted before I was a member.
How right you are!!!
I would like all the ones that say, I should not cut wood, live without wood for one month!!!

[Gary Davis]

the colder it is the more I need 

[Al_Smith]

As far as firewood unless I get lax I never run out or never will all within 500 feet from the house .Some tree huggers scoff at picking up downed or snags that died off because they claim the decomposing material goes back into the eco systems .In my opinion the leaves take care of all that but I won't argue about it just cut it up and burn it .It's not that I can't afford the propane it's a fact I don't waste anything .Plus the fact I restore old saws and I need something to test them out on plus I scoff at exercise like going to the gym with nothing shown for it ..I get my exercise plus a stack of wood in the process .Winner ,chicken dinner   

[hamesadam]

I've had a lot of trouble with Briggs engines

[gspren]

No one mentioned toilet paper   , I once made a comment that got me labeled as "sick" but that was a friends wife so it didn't count, the comment was TP can be "toilet paper" or "tooth pick" both wood products for cleaning unwanted food parts from opposite ends of the the digestive system but not readily interchangeable.