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Wil Sillen

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Cross laminated wood made from old pallets
Slabs of cross laminated wood made from old pallets. This is one of the results of the wood hackathons of Blue City from Rotterdam. In October 2022, a group of people and companies started making CLT more sustainable.

The results of one of the hackathons were presented on Monday 6 February, during the week of the circular economy. This hackathon was specifically about the question of whether cross-laminated timber, which is always made from new wood, could also be made from recycled wood.

A group of participants succeeded in making a construction of cross-laminated timber that was made from recycled timber within three months. TNO, waste processor Renewi, finger joint company Woodjoint, the Brabant company Boerboom Hout Groep and architectural firm Urban Climate Architects, which often designs with CLT, participated in this project.
Disposable pallets
Discarded wooden pallets are a continuous material stream, although pallet manufacturers are also increasingly reusing and repairing. This is especially true for the so-called Euro pallets, which have fixed sizes. But there is a continuous supply of one-off pallets that transport cargo from all over the world.

The participants took apart 110 pallets with simple tools. They clocked how much time they needed: about 15 minutes per pallet. But there are machines that can do this much faster. As for the yield: 25 pallets are approximately good for 1 cubic meter of wood on planks. These slats were taken to Woodjoint, who had to shorten the planks first to get sharp edges where the finger joints could be made.

Boerboom then glued these finger-jointed planks crosswise into CLT plates. Plates were made entirely of pallet wood and also plates with 'virgin' material on both outsides, including planks of larch and Douglas fir.
strength tests
TNO has taken a number of boards to the wood lab for strength tests. Researcher Ron Oorschot: 'We suspect that the strength will come very close to 'ordinary' cross-laminated timber. Perhaps less useful as floors, more as walls, because then the forces are more predictable and only work in one direction.”

Willem van de Merriënboer van Boerboom: 'We really think this is a very interesting development. Masses of wood go through a CLT factory. And the amount of good wood such as this pallet wood that is shredded or burned is also very large. How great would it be if you could reuse part of it sustainably.'

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