New Life Cycle Analysis suggests MDF made with recovered fibres from MDF Recovery’s process can reduce manufacturing carbon impact, with further gains possible through renewable energy and higher recycled content.
Recycled MDF fibre could play a meaningful role in lowering the environmental impact of board production, according to new Life Cycle Analysis carried out for MDF Recovery.
The study, conducted by Eunomia Research and Consulting Ltd with funding support from Innovate UK, examined the environmental performance of MDF made using recovered wood fibre from the MDF Recovery process. Its headline finding is that using 30% recycled fibre content can deliver a direct 12% reduction in the carbon footprint of the board manufacturing process when compared with MDF made entirely from virgin fibres.
That is a significant result for a sector under increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable progress on resource efficiency, carbon reduction and circularity. MDF is widely used across furniture, interiors, joinery and construction-related applications, but end-of-life panel waste has long presented a challenge. A viable route for recovering fibre and feeding it back into new board production would therefore be of obvious interest to manufacturers, merchants and specifiers.
The LCA compares MDF board made from 100% virgin fibres with boards containing 20%, 30% and 60% recovered wood fibre. All recovered fibre used in the assessment is assumed to come from the MDFR process. The analysis uses the EU Commission’s Environmental Footprint impact assessment method, assessing the full cradle-to-gate environmental profile across EF 3.1 impact categories.
According to the report, substituting virgin fibres with recovered fibres reduces the environmental impact of MDF board across the vast majority of the studied categories. The benefits are not limited to carbon. The study also identifies advantages in climate change, photochemical ozone formation, land use and fossil fuel resource use impact categories.
“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.”
Further gains may also be possible. The report forecasts that additional carbon footprint reductions could be achieved if renewable or biomass-based energy sources are used in the process, or if higher levels of recycled fibre are incorporated into board production.
The impact categories used in the LCA differ from those typically shown in an Environmental Product Declaration, and further work is planned to revise the analysis. This will include more robust consideration of biomass and end-of-life wood products as energy sources, the biogenic nature of the material, and renewable electricity use.
The report suggests that taking these factors into account could deliver further reductions of 30-50% in kgCO2 equivalent, pointing to a potentially important pathway for lower-impact MDF manufacturing.
For more info visit www.mdfrecovery.co.uk
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