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

Plywood is an engineered wood product used in the construction industry. Major concerns are
linked to plywood and deforestation, with the legitimacy of the raw timber used in the
production of plywood under question. China is the largest producer and exporter of plywood
in the world. Approximately 50% of the timber used in Chinese manufactured plywood comes
from illegal sources. Along with China, other major illegal-logging offending countries such
as Brazil and Indonesia supply Europe with the majority of its plywood demand. Not only is
plywood being manufactured with non-certified timber, but the glue itself used to bond
together the thin wood plies is of a very toxic nature. The negative environmental impact of
plywood is compounded by the fact that its embodied energy is significantly high due to transglobal
transportation of both the raw timber and the finished plywood product.
Many end-user issues also exist. For use in formworks, the predominant construction
application, plywood sheets must all be meticulously “oiled” by the personnel in order to
prevent the concrete permanently binding to the board. However, splintering of the external
skin will almost always occur in some sheets, rendering them unsuitable for further use.
Additionally, plywood’s short operational lifespan is compounded due to its inherent
weakness to moisture. In a formworks application, the same plywood sheet can be used no
more than 5 times, before being treated as waste. 300,000 tonnes of plywood waste is
generated 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 and
cost effective high performance substitute to plywood. The successful exploitation of the
EcoPanel technology will result in cumulative revenue >£50m after 5 years on the market.