Present status and potentiality of the economic utilization of the sawmill residue and wastage in Bangladesh

IRG/WP 04-50211

M A Islam, M S Rahman, A K M A Bosunia, A K Lahiry

This study has been carried out to obtain a clear picture about the current status of utilization of sawmill residue and wastage. In order to accomplish the study a random survey has been conducted in 27 sawmills of Khulna District and in 10 sawmills of Jessore District. Most of sawmills in these area run at a very primitive level compared to modern technology. Species used for conversion mainly depends on the demand and availability of logs in the surrounding areas of sawmills. In Khulna and its surrounding area the daily average consumption of log is about 104.86 cft., per sawmill. Daily average production is about 62.39 cft., and 42.47 cft. Wood is wasted as sawdust, edging/trimming, slab and in other ways. The percentage of production and residue is about 59.5% and 40.5% of the total consumption of logs in the sawmills respectively and among the total sawmilling residue, edging/trimming, sawdust, slab and others constitute about 20.73%, 12%, 4.22% and 3.55% respectively. Here it has also been attempted to estimate the approximate amount of wood wasted in 4,800 sawmills of Bangladesh. About 3.34 million tones per year of wood waste is produced during conversion in which edgings/trimmings, sawdust, slabs of different inferior sizes and others are about 1.71, 0.99, 0.35 and 0.29 million tones per year respectively. The most amount of sawmill residue is being used as fuel for cooking. About 100% of edging/trimming residue is used as fuel and 60% slab is used as fuel and another 40% is used for box making. Among the total produced sawdust about 70% is used as fuel and 30% is used as other purposes like in poultry farms, as water absorbing material, in ice factories etc. But this huge amount of sawmill residue can be used for manufacturing various value-added products like particleboard.


Keywords: Sawmill, wood utilization and wood residue

Conference: 04-06-06/10 Ljubljana, Slovenia


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