The reuse conference organized by the interreg project Circular Bioeconomy Arena in Gothenburg on 1-2 September had “New roles and logistics” as its own theme, and here the participants had the pleasure of hearing Jon Lille-Schulstad, Director of Business Development at Ragn-Sells AS, talk about the results of the testing carried out in Norway.
Concrete testing and analysis
Like the Norwegian Wood Cluster, Ragn-Sells has been a partner in the extensive Green Platform project SirkTRE, which has now been completed. SirkTRE has aimed to map and establish a circular value chain for recycled wood by facilitating and demonstrating the reuse and material recovery of recycled wood in practice.
– Normally, used materials are processed in such a way that they are impossible to recover for reuse. We have participated in SirkTRE and the research parallel CircWOOD to contribute insight and experience in the hope of finding concrete solutions that can be scaled up. In CircWOOD, we have facilitated analyses, provided data on quantities and qualities of wood waste, as well as information on handling and sorting,” said Jon Lille-Schulstad to an attentive audience in Gothenburg.
Data capture in Moss and Hamar
NIBIO carried out picking analyses at Ragn-Sell’s facilities in Moss and Hamar. A total of 46.4 tons of waste was reviewed. The picking analysis showed that the wood waste from construction had a higher proportion of unpainted wood or wood waste than that from households/recycling stations. The wood waste that came from industry and service industries mainly consisted of wooden packaging in the form of pallets.
– “While disposable pallets and packaging are basically excellent raw materials for board production, it is more demanding to collect and handle used wood materials,” said Jon Lille-Schulstad.
Experiences from the construction site
– “We learned that in order to collect recyclable materials, you need committed construction management and good information and training for your employees. In addition, the sorting solution at the construction site must be easily accessible,” said Jon Lille-Schulstad.
– Ragn-Sells tested several solutions for collecting materials on construction sites. “Our experience was that with the right solution, we increased the degree of filling, we had few deviations and managed to collect wood materials of good enough quality to go straight to reuse,” said Jon Lille-Schulstad. He explained that NIBIO and Treteknisk’s visual quality assessment of the collected recycled wood showed that more than 50% had good or excellent quality.
Cooperation between Ragn-Sells and Norsk Massivtre
– “As part of the SirkTRE project, we tested the use of collected recycled wood at Norsk Massivtre. Our experiences were so interesting that we are now developing this collaboration further after the SirkTRE project has been completed,” said Jon Lille-Schulstad, Director of Business Development at Ragn-Sells AS.
Circular Bioeconomy Arena
Norwegian Wood Cluster is the Norwegian owner of the interreg project Circular Bioeconomy Arena. The Swedish owner is Paper Province, and the project manager is Gry Lenschow Andersen at Paper Province. In the project, we work closely with Innovatum Science Park, Dalerna Science Park, Byggdialog Dalerna, Sting Innovation, Klosser Innovation, Kjeller Innovation and Circular Packaging Cluster. Circular wood construction has a strong focus in the project. It also works with start-up companies on the Norwegian and Swedish sides that work within the forest bioeconomy.
The project is funded by Interreg Sweden-Norway and EU funds, as well as with support from Innlandet County, Akershus County, Buskerud County, Østfold County, Region Värmland, Region Västra Götaland, Region Dalerna, Vinnova and DNB.