Throwback Thursday: The FPL Rotting Pit

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Thanks to Grant Kirker for writing this fascinating look back into Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) history and science. Kirker is a Research Forest Products Technologist at FPL in the Durability and Wood Protection Research unit.

Throughout its 110-year history, FPL has participated in groundbreaking wood research both nationally and internationally. The FPL research libraries contain a virtual treasure trove of information pertaining to the wise use of wood and wood-based materials. Historical overviews like this would not be possible without them.

One of the earliest endeavors at the newly established Forest Products Laboratory, then located at 1509 University Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin, was the testing of preservative treated wood for the expanding railroad sector in the US. The swift growth of railways across the country had created a huge demand for suitable hardwoods. But high decline rates due to wood rot fungi was a constant concern leading to an unreasonable amount of wood being used to replace rapidly rotting railroad ties. The dawn of wood preservation research at FPL was aimed at increasing the service life of rail ties to reduce the demand on America’s forests.  

Original Forest Products Laboratory Building at 1509 University Avenue
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FPL Researchers Pioneering Steps into a Sustainable Plastics Future

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As the public focuses more on climate change and sustainability solutions, the numbers and facts can be staggering, nearly crippling to think about. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is growing, an estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean each year, and our fish seem to be drowning in plastic instead of thriving under the sea. A June 2020, National Geographic article that projected 600 million metric tons of plastic waste in the ocean by 2040 if global plastic habits don’t change.

Hearing these projections and statistics can be discouraging and scary.

Ronald Sabo
Engineered Composites Science
Research Materials Engineer

But fear not, people like Forest Products Laboratory’s (FPL) Ron Sabo and his team of researchers are looking up the mountain, seeing the goal of a sustainable-eco-plastic future at the top and taking on the challenge with the diligent steps needed to make that future a reality.

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Labeling Wood Products for a Greener World

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Seven updated Environmental product declarations (EPDs) for wood products were recently released by the American Wood Council (AWC).  Maintaining up-to-date industry-wide, cradle-to-gate EPDs is a joint venture among several organizations including the AWC, the Canadian Wood Council (CWC), Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials (CORRIM), The Engineered Wood Association (APA), Composite Panel Association (CPA), and Forest Products Laboratory (FPL).

The updated EPDs cover a diverse selection of wood products: lumber, plywood, oriented strand board, laminated veneer lumber, I-joists, glue-laminated timber, and redwood lumber.

EPDs aren’t just arbitrary labels slapped onto wood products—they offer a transparent and straight-forward way to understand the potential and overall environmental impact of a wood product, starting from its harvesting and ending at its usage, its cradle-to-gate profile. Industry-wide EPDs also include a permanent carbon sequestration calculation that can be balanced against the amount of carbon emitted during manufacture.  

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Why Using Forest Products is Good for Forests

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Toilet Paper By Dusk – stock.adobe.com

Forest Products Laboratory researcher John Considine lends his expertise to help Rayonier Incorporated explain why what they do is so essential. Learn why trees are an irreplaceable ingredient in so many household products, even in the soft paper roll right next to your loo. Paper products are essential to modern life and trees are the sustainable resource that makes it all possible. Check out the story at https://www.rayonier.com/stories/using-paper-toilet-paper-and-cardboard-is-good-for-forests/

$10 Million Grant Awarded for Biomass Consortium

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The National Institute for Food and Agriculture recently announced the recipients of $90 million in funding through the agency’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s Sustainable Agriculture Systems program.

The Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) is a main collaborator in a project lead by West Virginia University’s Jingxin Wang. The project, “Mid-Atlantic Sustainable Biomass for Value-added Products Consortium (MASBio)” was awarded $10 million over five years to deliver a sustainable and economically feasible biomass for value-added products system in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

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