The development of groundbreaking recycling technology for mixed, low-grade thermoplastic waste

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Plywood is an engineered wood product used in the construction industry. Major concerns arelinked to plywood and deforestation, with the legitimacy of the raw timber used in theproduction of plywood under question. China is the largest producer and exporter of plywoodin the world. Approximately 50% of the timber used in Chinese manufactured plywood comesfrom illegal sources. Along with China, other major illegal-logging offending countries suchas Brazil and Indonesia supply Europe with the majority of its plywood demand. Not only isplywood being manufactured with non-certified timber, but the glue itself used to bondtogether the thin wood plies is of a very toxic nature. The negative environmental impact ofplywood is compounded by the fact that its embodied energy is significantly high due to transglobaltransportation of both the raw timber and the finished plywood product.Many end-user issues also exist. For use in formworks, the predominant constructionapplication, plywood sheets must all be meticulously “oiled” by the personnel in order toprevent the concrete permanently binding to the board. However, splintering of the externalskin will almost always occur in some sheets, rendering them unsuitable for further use.Additionally, plywood’s short operational lifespan is compounded due to its inherentweakness to moisture. In a formworks application, the same plywood sheet can be used nomore than 5 times, before being treated as waste. 300,000 tonnes of plywood waste isgenerated annually, most of which ends up in landfill.This project seeks to develop technology to take unwanted low-grade waste plastic, of which>200,000 tonnes is currently sent to landfill in the UK, and turn it into an eco-friendly andcost effective high performance substitute to plywood. The successful exploitation of theEcoPanel technology will result in cumulative revenue >£50m after 5 years on the market.