MDF produced from MDF Recovery’s recycled fibre process succeeds in reducing the environmental impact of the board, according to new Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) results.
The LCA study, conducted by Eunomia Research and Consulting Ltd and with funding support from Innovate UK, shows that inclusion of 30% recycled fibre content achieves a direct reduction in carbon footprint of 12% during the board manufacturing process.
Substitution of virgin fibres in this way, the analysis says, succeeds in reducing the environmental impact of the MDF board in the vast majority of the studied impact categories.
In addition, the report forecasts that further reductions in carbon footprint are possible if renewable or biomass-based energy sources are used in the process. A higher recycled content within board production could also further enhance the environmental performance.
The study provides a helpful comparison with MDF board made from 100% virgin fibres.
It explores the environmental impact of using different ratios of virgin and recovered wood fibre in the production of MDF board. Results are presented for 20%, 30%, and 60% recovered wood content MDF, all compared with 100% virgin MDF. All of the recovered wood fibre used is assumed to be the product of the MDFR process.
The assessment uses the EU Commission’s Environmental Footprint impact assessment methods (EF3.1). To evaluate the environmental profile of the systems, all EF 3.1 impact categories were assessed for the overall cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA).
“Recovered fibres produced by the MDFR process and subsequently dried to the level required for MDF board manufacture use less energy in their production than virgin wood fibres,” concludes the study.
“Therefore, using recovered fibres sourced from the MDFR process to replace conventional virgin wood fibres in the production of MDF boards is attractive from the perspective of climate change, photochemical ozone formation, land use, and fossil fuel resource use impact categories.
“It is therefore recommended to maximise the quantity of recovered fibres produced from the MDFR process within future MDF production.”
The impact categories used in the report differ to those that could be shown in an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). Further work will revise the LCA by robustly considering biomass and end-of-life wood products as energy sources, the biogenic nature of the material as well as electricity from renewable sources.
It is expected that further reductions of 30-50% in kgCO2 equivalent could be achieved by considering these factors.
