Timber: Top 5 Uses of Timber | Economic Geography

The following points highlight the top five uses of timber. The uses are:- 1. Fuel 2. Construction 3. Pulp and Paper 4. Synthetic Textiles 5. Other Uses.

Use # 1. Fuel:

Timber has a wide variety of uses in con­struction and as an industrial raw material, but the most important single use for timber is as fuel. About 40 per cent of the total timber removed from forests all over the world is used in this way.

However, the proportion of timber production used as fuel differs very much in different parts of the world, depending on the availability of other fuels such as coal, the degree of control exercised over the forests by govern­ments and the fuel requirements of the various countries.

Those countries in which forest industries are most highly developed generally use least timber for fuel, while in those areas where forestry is little- developed, fuel is the major use, consuming almost the entire output. The African and South American continents consume a very large proportion of their timber as fuel, both for domestic and indus­trial purposes, and in fact most tropical countries have a high consumption.

A notable exception to this pat­tern is Malaysia, where, though timber is a major prod­uct of the country, the proportion used for fuel is very small. This is partly because a rather higher stand­ard of living than in many developing countries en­ables many people to use kerosene, gas or electricity rather than wood as the major domestic fuel, but also reflects the use of wood from rubber plantations rather than from the forests, as an industrial and a domestic fuel.

Petroleum supplies most industries with their power and is readily available. This contrasts with the position in many Latin American countries, where, because little coal or oil were available, wood has tra­ditionally been used to power industries and locomotives. As oil reserves are increasingly exploited less wood may be required for fuel.

The European countries, North America and Japan use relatively little wood for fuel, though the pattern is not uniform. Those countries which are short of timber, such as Britain, but have ample supplies of coal and gas, use very little timber for fuel.

Others, such as Finland, where timber is cheaply and readily available and coal is difficult to obtain, use a larger proportion (about one-fifth) of their timber for fuel. In Japan, too, despite the rigorous forestry practices, the shortage of domestic coal and oil supplies means that about one-sixth of the total timber output is used as fuel.

In southern Europe, in such countries as Spain, Yugoslavia and Turkey, where industrial development is slower and the standard of living lower than in much of Europe, the proportion of timber output used as fuel is very high. The low consumption of timber as fuel in North America reflects both the availability of a wide range of other fuels and the high standard of living. Canada uses less than 5 per cent of its timber for fuel.

Use # 2. Construction:

After fuel the most important use for timber is in the building and constructional industries. It has traditionally been used to build houses or parts of houses, and despite the use of steel and concrete for a wide range of building purposes nowadays, it continues to be used in this way.

Al­though the development of newer materials has re­duced the proportion of total timber supplies used for construction, the continual growth of population in the world, and hence of the construction industry, has increased the amount of timber used for this pur­pose.

Apart from house-building, timber is also required for shipbuilding in many areas, though its greatest use for ships was in the past, when not only timber but pitch, resin and turpentine were consumed in large quantities in the traditional shipbuilding areas of northern Europe and eastern North America. Timber is also the basis of a wide range of woodworking in­dustries producing furniture, boxes, crates and matches.

While most of the timber used for fuel is hardwood from tropical forests the situation in the industrial use of timber is the reverse. Most timber used for construction, pitprops, matches and so on is softwood.

Timber is used in the construction industry in three main ways:

(a) Sawnwood:

Whole timber is used for heavy- duty construction work such as railway sleepers or the construction of piers and jetties and for such pur­poses hardwoods such as the resistant jarrah and karri hardwoods of Australia are ideal. Pit-props, however, are usually of coniferous logs. In tropical countries the strong, damp-resistant timbers from the mangrove swamps are used for such construction.

Sawnwood, mostly from coniferous trees, is also used in the form of planks, boards, beams and so forth in house building. Tropical and temperate hardwoods are used for boats. Cabinet woods such as mahagony, rosewood, ebony may be used for furniture, while cheaper furniture is made from softwoods, e.g. pine.

(b) Plywoods and veneers:

Besides its use in the form of planks, wood may be cut into thin sheets which are subsequently glued together to form a light but strong material called plywood, which is much used for internal construction such as doors, built-in furniture and so on. Thin sheets of valuable woods such as ebony, mahagony, oak, walnut, may be fixed to less valuable woods to make a veneer for furniture- making.

(c) Fibreboards:

In addition to sawn timber and processed woods such as plywoods, timber is also used in the form of fibre- and particle- boards. These are made from pulp or from sawdust and other waste materials and are thus by-products of the saw-milling and pulping industries. These types of board, such as hardboard, blockboard, chipboard, etc. are used for furniture and internal construction work such as linings, ceilings and so on.

Use # 3. Pulp and Paper:

In terms of value the most important use of timber is in the pulp and paper industry. This industry is constantly expanding and it creates an ever-increasing demand for timber.

Wood contains two substances, lignin and cellulose, and the object of pulping is to extract the cellulose from which paper (and synthetic textiles) are made. Both hardwoods and softwoods can be used for pulp­ing, but the greater ease of dealing with softwoods and the predominance of softwoods in the main world industrial areas has led to the dominance of softwoods in this industry.

Wood is not the only substance from which paper can be made and a wide variety of vegetable fibres have been used in different parts of the world for many hundreds of years. The art of paper-making first originated in China. Many simple paper-making processes are still carried out on a small scale but are of little international importance. More important is the attempt to use fibres other than softwood cellulose in order to conserve forest resources.

The fibres which could be used in this way are by-products of other industries and, as such, would represent a major econ­omy for many countries if efficient processes for converting them into paper could be evolved. Banana trees, sugar bagasse (cane from which the sugar has been extracted), padi straw and old rubber trees are sources of pulp which are being experimented with, but as yet they have not been used on a large scale.

Temperate hardwoods, however, are being increasing­ly used for pulp production. Rags and wastepaper can also be converted into pulp for re-use as newsprint, though high quality paper cannot be made, and this practice is becoming more and more important in the major paper-consuming countries such as the U.S.A. and Britain. At present, however, 90 per cent of pulp is derived from wood.

There are three processes by which wood is con­verted into pulp and the method used depends on the type of wood and the type of paper to be pro­duced:

(a) Mechanical process:

About one-fifth of the world production of woodpulp is produced by the mechanical process, in which the wood is ground up by revolving grindstones and then soaked in water to produce a fibrous mass. This is a simple and fairly cheap process but has some disadvantages. It can only be used to deal with softwood timber containing little resin and having long fibres. This means that it is restricted mainly to spruces and that pines and hard­woods cannot be used.

The method produces little waste material but the end-product is not suitable for all types of paper and only newsprint and low-grade papers can be made. The process is most important in Canada, where suitable trees are available and as a result Canada is the largest producer of newsprint in the world, making about 36 per cent of the total.

The process is carried out in large plants which require an enormous capital outlay and is most economical where a constant, large production can be maintained. It is thus least important where supplies of spruce are small, or where pulp production is only on a small scale.

(b) Chemical process:

The chemical and semi- chemical processes together account for about 80 per cent of pulp production. This is because they are more versatile and can use a wider range of raw materials. However, the chemical process is more expensive and more wasteful than the mechanical process. Running costs are high, outlay on chemicals is great, and less of the initial log is utilized in the final pulp. However, the pulp produced is of better quality and is used for high-quality papers.

In the chemical process the timber is soaked in acids or alkalis in order to dissolve the lignin, leaving the pure cellulose. Different chemicals are used for different purposes. The sulphite process, in which calcium bisulphite is used at high temperature and pressure, produces pulp for book papers and high- quality papers, but requires less resinous woods.

The sulphate process, using sodium sulphate and caustic soda, produces somewhat coarser papers for wrapping and packaging, but can use resinous woods such as pines. For this reason it is particularly important in the U.S.A. where much of the timber production is of very resinous pines from the southern states.

The greater importance of the packaging industry in the U.S.A. is another reason for this concentration. The better quality timbers, and the need for a larger pro­portion of high quality paper, make the sulphite pro­cess more important in Europe.

Chemical processes are less demanding of electri­city and water supplies than are mechanical processes but the chemicals needed may amount to half the weight of the logs used. However, the sulphate pro­cess has the advantage that chemicals can be recovered to some extent and re-used, reducing costs and also reducing river pollution by factory effluents.

(c) Semi-chemical process:

The semi-chemical pro­cess is in two stages. Chips of wood are first treated with chemicals to remove some of the lignin and after­wards the wood is broken down mechanically to ex­tract the cellulose. This process is most suited to the pulping of hardwoods and thus, although it is rela­tively little used at present, its use may expand as the pressure on softwoods increases and more hard­woods have to be used in the pulp and paper industry.

The U.S.A. derives about 10% of its pulp by the semi- chemical process, and is the largest producer of semi- chemical pulp. Pulp made by the semi-chemical pro­cess is chiefly used to make heavy-duty cardboard and fibreboard rather than paper.

The pulp produced by the above processes has to be processed in various ways in order to produce the wide range of papers and cardboards which are in everyday use. The main stages in paper manufacture are the further refining and bleaching of the pulp, which is then beaten and rolled out. Better quality papers are dyed, sized and coated with a chalky solution to give them more body and a smooth, shiny surface.

Paper is not the only product of the pulp industry. Of growing importance is the manufacture of a wide variety of fibreboards and particle boards for con­structional purpose. These are made from pulp, saw- mill waste, such as sawdust, or forest waste, such as chips and offcuts. These board products have only become important in the twentieth century and par­ticle board was first made in Germany during the Second World War, as a way of saving timber.

Fibreboard is made mostly from mechanically or semi-chemically processed pulp and both softwoods and hardwoods can thus be used. Sawmill residues are also used to a large extent, especially in Europe. The leading producers are the U.S.S.R., the U.S.A. and Sweden. Particle board can be made from a wide range of materials, not necessarily pulp, and consists of a mass of small particles of lignocellulose bonded by resinous material to form a board. Much forest waste is utilized in its production.

Particle board mills are small and cheaper to set up than fibreboard mills but the cost of resins for bonding the particles is often greater than that of the wood. Both fibreboard and particle board production are increasing and should be encouraged because they can make use of hitherto wasted timber materials and at the same time can ease the demand for sawn-timber in the construction indus­try.

Use # 4. Synthetic Textiles:

Wood cellulose is the basis of the synthetic textiles known as rayon. The chief source of cellulose for the textile industry is spruce wood pulp but cellulose is also extracted from cotton linters (the burrs which remain attached to the cotton seeds after ginning). The cellulose is dis­solved in caustic soda and carbon bisulphide and the resultant solution is extruded through a spinneret with numerous holes into a coagulant to make fila­ments of viscose rayon.

Another process, using acetic acid, acetic anhydride and acetone produces a solu­tion which is extruded into a current of warm air rather than a coagulant. The rayon so produced is called acetate. Both processes have been used since the end of the nineteenth century but acetate has only become important since 1930.

The rayon fila­ments may be used as they are to produce ‘artificial silk’ or may be cut into staple lengths and then spun, woven, dyed and finished in the same way as ordinary textiles. They may thus be given the properties and appearance of the traditional textiles such as cotton or wool. The U.S.A., Japan and European countries such as Italy are the major rayon producers.

Use # 5. Other Uses:

Various types of timber have a wide range of uses as dyestuffs, chemicals and so on but many of these applications have been superseded by the development of synthetic chemical dyes and resins. Wood does still yield materials for the disin­fectant and paint-making industries. Trees also yield tannin, gums, resins and drugs.