A new milestone has been reached in the Danish CTB project Wood Cycle. This project has aimed to establish a circular value chain for reclaimed wood from construction sites and explore the potential for a scalable socio-economic business and collaboration model. Now, the first truck delivery with 15 tons of recycled wood has been delivered to construction market STARK in Vejle.
Vejle Resource Centre
Wood Cycle
To set the stage: Vejle Municipality mapped construction waste quantities at 74,954 tons, of which 2,611 tons were wood waste. The Wood Cycle project was created to determine whether this wood waste could be collected and reused. Vejle Business Support has facilitated the development of a circular value chain with the following partners:
- KT Erhvervsbyg: A local constructor who provided reclaimed wood from a construction project in Vejle.
- Artusbyg: Constructor from Vejle providing wood from their construction sites.
- Raunstrup: National constructor providing wood from their construction sites.
- TARPREC: Recycling company refined the wood in collaboration with local prison as a subcontractor.
- STARK Vejle: National construction market who takes the wood for resale.
Trust, lessons & experiences
Establishing a circular value chain requires significant time to build logistics processes and production facilities, as well as to develop trust among partners. This trust is a central aspect of the CTB project. Recruiting material suppliers has been challenging despite the large amounts of wood waste identified in the mapping.
Transportation distance from the material supplier to the production site must be kept under one hour to minimize costs. A collaboration with the local prison was established through TAPREC, who already had experience cooperating with the national administration of prisons in Denmark. Vejle Business Support intended to involve a social enterprise in Vejle Municipality. However, a mapping revealed that such enterprises were not available.
Climate impact and CO2 reduction
Flemming Kjærsgaard, CTB Project Manager and Business Support Guide at Veijle Muncipality, highlights the climate impacts of a circular approach in the building sector with a concrete example: “One construction project, KT Erhvervsbyg, delivered approximately 35 tons of wood, of which 15 tons were prepared for resale at STARK. This results in an estimated CO2 reduction of about 24.3 tons CO2.”
STARK requires that the wood is at least 180 cm long, but TAPREC has made an agreement with Burntwood to accept all lengths under 180 cm, which can significantly increase the recycling rate. Flemming adds:“Vejle Business Support continues work on scaling the value chain with the partners in the Wood Cycle network and will share experiences within the Circular Trust Building consortium."