Egger wood recycling facility reaches full operational status

Egger Wood Products, based in Linwood, North Carolina, has announced that its $41 million on-campus recycling center has reached full operational status.

The investment by the company in its Linwood facility includes large-scale grinders and sifters, which will allow for the recycling of wood construction waste, such as boxes, pallets and trimmed wood for use in particleboard production.

“These recycling facilities will increase [the] availability of raw materials within 90 miles of our facility while furthering Egger’s sustainability goals,” Carsten Ritterbach, plant manager for commercial services at Egger, tells the Winston-Salem Journal. “This will reduce delivery costs and vehicle emissions, while also keeping this waste wood out of local landfills.”

Egger makes particleboard and thermally fused laminate at the plant. Its customers include furniture manufacturers, wood distributors, contractors and do-it-yourself industries.

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The process of making particleboard and laminate products from recycled wood involves resin being applied to a previous dry fiber. An automated compaction roller follows as an additional step to ensure resin flows evenly across the fibers.

As reported by the Winston-Salem Journal, Egger’s laminate and particleboard products are comprised of up to 15 percent post-consumer recycled wood.

“We are happy to say that most of the wood material in our U.S.-produced boards is waste wood from sawmill residues and preconsumer recycled material,” Markus Frevert, the Linwood plant manager, tells the publication. “Only about 7 percent comes from harvested timber, sourced from sustainably managed forests.”

In January, Egger-owned subsidiary Timberpak LLC acquired the business and assets of Novem Industries of Charlotte.

Novem will serve as a collection and preparation site that accepts construction and demolition waste wood and packaging waste—primarily used and broken pallets. The wood is ground into pieces about 1 foot in length before it is delivered to the Egger production plant.

About 90 percent of the wood supply for the plant originates within a 100-mile radius to reduce carbon impact from transport, the company says.