Media Release: NTPSG Launches Wood Packaging Recycling Brochure

Sunday, 01 March 2009 10:00

The National Timber Product Stewardship Group (NTPSG) has launched a new brochure on recycling wood packaging such as pallets and crates. It is estimated that around 300,000 tonnes of waste wood packaging is disposed to landfills each year around Australia and some companies, particularly those importing manufactured goods from overseas, generate large quantities of waste wood packaging. While a significant quantity of wood pallets, particularly if they are standard size, can be repaired and reused, single-trip wood pallets and crates generally cannot be. The good news is that these pallets and crates are increasingly recycled into products such as new particleboard, mulch, animal bedding or even low carbon polluting renewable energy. The brochure clarifies information for imported wood packaging about methods that are used to minimise the spread of pests and diseases into and around Australia. For example – methods such as heat sterilisation and fumigants which are not barriers to wood recycling or use in the generation of renewable energy. The brochure also directs companies to the new NTPSG website which includes a Directory with over 120 businesses across Australia that reuse, recycle or use waste wood packaging to generate renewable energy. “This brochure helps businesses that generate a lot of waste wood packaging play their part in the product stewardship of wood products across the supply chain – even at end-of-life,” said Stephen Mitchell, Project Manager for the NTPSG. This brochure has been developed with funding support from Western Australia’s Strategic Waste Initiatives Scheme, the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change and the Queensland Department of Tourism, Regional Development and Industry. The NTPSG, a timber industry initiative, has targeted wood packaging as “low hanging fruit” to help meet its overall target of doubling the recovery of all waste wood to one million tonnes per year by 2017. Read the recycling wood pallets and packaging brochure (PDF, 0.3MB). Hard copies of the brochure are also available on request.