05/2007 18 December
	Member News | Regulatory News | Business News | Scientific News | People in the News | IRG Secretariat News | Sponsor | Events | Print letter
	Member News IRG Travel Award for Short-term Scientific Missions Funds are still available for Travel Awards. If you are interested, please take advantage of the on-line application procedure available on the IRG website. The maximum amount that can be granted is Swedish Kroner SEK 12 500, i.e. approximately USD 1900 or EUR 1300. Regulatory News Australia: Introduction of the New Permanent Immunisation Treatment Certificate for Timber to be Postponed The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) is postponing the introduction of the new permanent immunisation treatment certificate for timber treated to the requirements of Australian Standard 1604 Hazard Class H2 (or greater) or overseas equivalent (see AQIS Industry Notice 15/2007-08, issued 27 November 2007 for details). It was originally proposed that this new treatment certificate 11/2007-08, issued 30 October 2007 on proposed changes to AQIS requirements for permanent preservative treatments for timber) would be accepted from 1 December 2007. This delay has been made in response to comments received on the proposed changes to permanent preservative treatments for timber, invited in Industry Notice 11/2007-08. The existing permanent immunisation treatment certificate (for AQIS approved permanent preservative treatments listed in the Cargo Containers Booklet Cargo Containers – Quarantine Aspects and Procedures) will still be accepted until at least May 2008. A modified version of the new permanent immunisation treatment certificate will be available in the first quarter of 2008. Europe: Marketing of Chromium-containing wood preservatives According to the latest decision taken with majority vote during the 27th meeting of the Competent Authorities (CA) on 5 December 2007, Chromium-containing wood preservatives meeting the following requirements on their composition and use shall be allowed to remain on the market: 1. Requirements regarding the composition of the products: No other form than chromic acid (chromium trioxide) should be allowed in the product. Other chromium compounds, such as potassium dichromate or sodium dichromate should not be allowed, as no data have been provided to demonstrate that these compounds have no, or only a negligible, biocidal activity. In salts containing chromic acid, the active substance must be a copper compound, such as copper (II) oxide or copper hydroxide. Other copper compounds such as copper sulphate or copper hydroxide carbonate shall not be allowed, as no data on these substances have been provided. Boric acid may be added to the described above to increase the biocidal activity of the product against certain target organisms. Water serves as the solvent for these components. The mass ratio of chromium trioxide to copper (II) oxide must not exceed a ratio of 3 to 1 in salts containing chromic acid. 2. Requirements regarding the use of the products: Not for use class 1 and 2, as there are other Chromium-free alternatives products available presenting a lesser risk for these uses. Not for use in class 5 as no data on efficacy against marine organisms were provided. To be applied only via vacuum pressure impregnation, as only this technique has shown to be efficacious to ensure proper fixation. Treated wood to undergo appropriate procedures, such as heat treatments, in order to allow fixation and full reduction of chromium (VI). For each product, the maximum amount to be used per cubic meter of wood, shall be defined at product authorisation in order to limit the amount of chromium (VI) applied. Please read the full document Source: WEI by email as of 07 Dec 2007. Business News US: Wood Preservation Industry in the U.S. and its Foreign Trade (1997-2009) The industrys revenue for the year 2006 was approximately $5 billion US dollars. The gross profit was around 18%. Market sizes for the wood preservation industry are: wood poles, piles, and posts, owned & treated by same plant (19.9%); other wood products, owned/treated by same establishment (64.6%); contract wood preservation (7.8%); and wood preservation, not specified by kind, total (7.7%). Import was valued at $77.16 million US dollars from 27 countries. The industry also exported $144.68 million US dollars worth of merchandises to 95 countries. Read more New Zealand: Support for timber treatment enquiry Wood Processors Association Chief Executive Peter Bodeker has supported the call for an enquiry into timber treatments. Read more From Friday Offcuts – 16 November 2007. US: US$5.5 Billion business in Composite and plastic lumber Demand for wood-plastic composite and plastic lumber in the US is projected to climb 10 percent per year through 2011 to US$5.5 billion. Read more From Friday Offcuts – 23 November 2007. New Zealand: Support for timber treatment enquiry Wood Processors Association Chief Executive Peter Bodeker has supported the call for an enquiry into timber treatments. Read more From Friday Offcuts – 16 November 2007. Scientific News Australia: Ambitious Australian timber recovery target set Leading timber industry representatives have announced a bold plan to double post-consumer timber recovery to one million tonnes each year. Read more From Friday Offcuts – 30 November 2007. Australia: New waste timber reports available for Australia Three reports have recently been completed as part of the TDA/A3P project to develop a national strategy for waste timber in Australia. Read more From Friday Offcuts – 9 November 2007. People in the News IRG Secretariat News IRG 39 IRG 39 in Istanbul, Turkey The invitation and registration package for IRG 39 in Istanbul 25-29 May 2008 is now available here and online through the IRG website. Deadlines Please note deadlines for submitting full papers and poster abstracts is 15 March 2008, for accommodation booking 01 April 2008, and for registration 30 April 2008. Contact person for the IRG 39 Local Organizing Committee (LOC) is Dr Ilker Usta. Sponsoring IRG 39 Supporting IRG 39 in Istanbul? The LOC is looking for additional sponsorship. Please contact Dr Ilker Usta, if your organization is interested in supporting the upcoming conference. Contributions for IRG 39 Annual Meeting in Turkey - Please submit before 15 March 2008! It is now time to start thinking about contributions for IRG 39 in Istanbul on 25-29 May. Full papers in MS Word format are requested before 15 March. Three special sessions are planned so far: 1. Special session on Termites and wood composites Berhan Ahmed reminds members about contributions to a special session on Termites and wood composites. Please contact Berhan for more information. 2. Special session on Conservation of wooden cultural heritage Responsible person for this session is Wibke Unger. You may contact her for further information. 3. Special session on boron type wood preservatives Turkey is one of the main suppliers of boron in the world. A special session of the use of boron in wood protection will therefore be organised. Please contact Marko Petric or Radu Craciun for more information. Other proposals for special sessions in Istanbul: Decay mechanisms, Natural extractives (common interest in Sections 1 and 3; focus should be on the mode of action of these, their ecotoxicity, and the interest in industry for this type of chemicals), Nanomaterials and nanotechnology in wood protection, Wood protection in Eastern Europe, The characterisation of moisture in wood in service and its consequences, Performance classification, the initiative for a DNA sequencing priority list of organisms, and corrosion, Aesthetics and Coatings. More ideas are welcome. Please contact the Scientific Programme Committee chairman, Mr Jack Norton, or any of the Section leaders: Dr Frederick Green III, Dr Michael Kennedy, Dr Marko Petrič, Dr Andreas Rapp, or Dr Ed Baines. Compendium 2007 now completed The web-based Compendium has now been updated with the 2007 papers. Papers presented at the IRG-IUFRO regional meeting 29 October - 2 November have also been uploaded. Invoicing 2008 Invoicing for 2008 will take place after the Christmas and New Year Holidays. The membership and sponsorship fees are unchanged since 2007. Please note that members born in 1950 or earlier, may pre-pay a membership fee for the rest of their life. The years' of consecutive, fully paid-up membership is required. The membership fee is waived for members born in 1938 or earlier, with at least 20 years' continuous, fully paid up, membership. Please contact the IRG Secretariat if you are interested in life-long membership or if you qualify for having the fee waived. Members who do not want to retain their memberships are kindly asked to inform the Secretariat immediately to avoid being invoiced. To facilitate your payment, go to www.irg-wp.com and take advantage of credit card payment by the secure site for membership renewal. Successful IRG Regional Meeting in collaboration with IUFRO Dr Andrew Wong and the IRG President Dr Gérard Deroubaix concluded that the joint IRG-IUFRO Regional Meeting was a success. The IUFRO All Division 5 Conference took place in Taipei, Taiwan on 29 October -2 November 2007. The wood protection sessions were jointly organized with the IRG and the IRG members Dr Andrew Wong, University Malaysia Sarawak, and Dr Yoon Soo Kim, Chonnam National University, Korea, were responsible for the programme. In total 27 papers were prepared for the meeting and about 20 of them were presented orally at well attended sessions. A keynote/position paper was presented by the IRG President, Dr Gérard Deroubaix, and the Past President, Dr Jeff Morrell. They both concluded the meeting had been successful for both organisations and that further collaboration will be considered for IRG 40 in China and the IUFRO world conference in Korea in 2010. All papers, inclusive of poster papers are available for IRG members through the web-based Compendium and will appear on the CD for IRG 39 as well. Problems with the Compendium login ID? Some members have reported problems with the Compendium login. The following procedure seems to work in most cases: First you need to clear your Internet cache. If you are using Internet Explorer, click on the Tools menu and then Internet Options. Find and select Clear temporary internet files. In Mozilla Firefox, you choose Tools and then Clear sensitive data. Check Cache and Session data and hit clear. NB. In order to get renewed login ID, the 2008 dues must be paid. Sponsor the IRG e-Newsletter in 2008 IRG regular sponsors and members' institutes are kindly invited to sponsor the production of the IRG e-Newsletter in order to cover the costs involved for production of the same. The IRG e-Newsletter is scheduled for six issues per year, and for each issue a sponsor is welcome. The fee for sponsoring the e-Newsletter is USD 450 (SEK 3 000) in 2007. The e-Newsletter sponsor will then get the company/institute logo on the front page and a link to the company/institute website. Sponsors so far have been: Arch (UK), Arch (US), CSI, Dr Wolman GmbH, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Lanxess, Nisus Corporation, Osmose (US), Troy Corporation, US Borax, Dyrup (DK), Sankyo Agro, Viance and SP Trätek. Please contact the IRG Secretariat, if you are interested in sponsoring the e-Newsletter. Contact details Please report any change of contact details (address, e-mail, tel, fax) to the IRG Secretariat immediately in order to keep our register up to date and to facilitate the Secretariat's communication with Members and Sponsors. Legal Information Read legal information here Editorial If you have information related to wood protection being of general interest for Regular Members, Student Members or IRG Sponsors, please email to the NiB editor with the name of the web page and the URL.					Sponsor Sponsor of this issue: Click the logo to visit the e-Newsletter sponsor! Updated: Events MEDACHS 08 1st Int Conference on "Construction Heritage in Coastal and Marine Environments (28 - 30 Jan 2008, Lisbon, Portugal) Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference (11 - 14 March 2008, Stockholm, Sweden) CA E37 12th Workshop 'Enhanced durability country reports focussing on differences in end use related requirements' (21 - 22 April 2008, Heraklion, Greece) 11th International Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components (DBMC)- 'Globality' and 'Locality' in Durability (11 - 14 May 2008, Istanbul, Turkey) Forest Technology Platform (FTP) conference (19 - 21 May 2008, Ljubljana, Slovenia) The First International Symposium of Climate Change and Dendrochronology in Caspian Ecosystems (20 - 21 May 2008, Sari, I.R. Iran) IRG 39 Annual Conference (25 - 29 May 2008, Istanbul, Turkey) Biocidal Products Directive (98/8/EC) - Practical advice for working with Biocide registrations (7 - 8 February 2008 & 01 - 02 July 2008, London, U.K.) ECOWOOD 2008 – 3rd International Conference & Exhibition on Environmentally-Compatible Forest Products (10 - 12 September 2008, Oporto, Portugal) COST Actions The Procedures Manual The IRG Procedures Manual ia a "handbook" for IRG Members and Sponsors. It has the following contents: Application Package IRG Travel Award for Short-term scientific missions (38kb, PDF) Statutes (21kb, PDF) Guidelines for IRG Co-sponsorship of IRG Regional Meetings (18kb, PDF) Nomination procedure for officers (83kb, PDF) Conditions for membership (187kb, PDF) Conditions for the Ron Cockcroft Award (102kb, PDF) Guidelines for the preparation of the annual report from corresponding members (73kb, PDF) Guidelines for oral presentation at an IRG Conference (109kb, PDF) Role and Responsibilities for Section Leaders and Working Party Conveners (97kb, PDF) Guidelines for the preparation of an IRG Document (186kb, PDF) Guidelines for the selection of keynote speakers (93kb, PDF) Archives IRG News in Brief 04/2007 01 November IRG News in Brief 03/2007 04 July IRG News in Brief 02/2007 03 May IRG News in Brief 01/2007 25 February IRG News in Brief 06/2006 20 December IRG News in Brief 05/2006 31 October IRG News in Brief 04/2006 31 August 2006 IRG News in Brief 03/2006 30 June 2006 IRG News in Brief 02/2006 30 April 2006 IRG News in Brief 01/2006 03 March 2006 IRG News in Brief 05/2005 07 December 2005 IRG News in Brief 04/2005 16 September 2005 IRG News in Brief 03/2005 27 July 2005 IRG News in Brief 02/2005 11 May 2005 IRG News in Brief 01/2005 16 March 2005 IRG News in Brief 12 January 2004 IRG News 01 September 2003 Wishing all IRG Members and Sponsors a Happy New Year! Finally this year, on behalf of the IRG President, Dr Gérard Deroubaix, the Secretary-General Jöran Jermer, and the Editor-in-Chief Rolf-Dieter Peek we would like to thank all IRG Members and Sponsors for continued stimulations and contributions. We wish you all a relaxing and well earned break with friends and family over the Christmas period. Looking forward to meeting all of you in good health at the IRG 39 Annual Meeting in Istanbul, 2008.