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It's mind-blowing because it is bullshit and a total misrepresentation of the paper it cites. What the paper says is that less than 20% of the volume of the tre
by jeffbee 1y ago
It's mind-blowing because it is bullshit and a total misrepresentation of the paper it cites. What the paper says is that less than 20% of the volume of the tree (including the branches and the leaves and the stump) becomes dimensional lumber, 40% becomes chipboard, 7% is firewood, 2.3% is sawdust, and the remainder is burned.
Any time you find yourself surprised by a claim, that's your signal to dig into the sources.
- y0eswddl 1y ago69.3% still leaves 30% of tree being burned after cut down... An insane amount imo
- jeffbee 1y agoYou're never gonna believe how much of the overall volume of, say, a tomato plant, gets "wasted" by this standard.
- sidewndr46 1y agoI'm surprised they didn't count the root system as well, those are usually gargantuan for the trees I see raised for lumber. Going by volume is also remarkably useless because if a tree produces some large non-dense structure like a leaf it skews the numbers. The issue with industrial forestry isn't waste, but monocropping and habitat destruction.
- dghlsakjg 1y agoThe log that makes it to the mill is what those stats are about. Not the tree as a whole. I live in BC and a huge portion of the tree is left in the forest. All of the branches, smaller trees, tops and other bits not worth transporting are burned in slash piles or left in the forest to decompose. There is typically at least a foot thick layer of wood debris left in the cut block after the logging companies come through. Some forestry companies near me allow firewood processors to come through and grab the leftovers out of the clear cuts, but it is pretty close to a rounding error.
- jeffbee 1y agoThe paper that underlies this claim is not starting from the log, it is starting from the whole tree.