During the run-up to the November 12 release of my first book, Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion Dollar Trash Trade, every weekday I’m posting a new photo taken during my decade of reporting on the global waste, recycling, refurbishment, and repair trade. Today’s image shows what finally becomes of the old pallets, roof beams, floors, and other scraps recycled in China’s thousands of wood.recycling businesses. The plywood shown below (the excitement is too much, I know) was recycled at the Wuxi, China-area shop featured in this week’s Scenes:from a Junkyard Planet:”
When most people think of recycling, they don’t think of wood. But wood recycling, especially in the developing world, is a key means of preserving forests while maximizing the life of a raw material that’s simply too durable to waste on a single use. In this 2007 photo, taken at the Wuxi, China wood recycling yard featured in the four previous photos in this series, stacks of plywood recovered from old pallets await shipment to companies that will make them into new pallets (or, possibly, use them for other purposes). It’s not the sort of recycling that goes into a recycling bin, but it’s just as important and arguably more sustainable. After all, the fibers in a piece of paper break down after six or seven trips through the paper mill; a piece of wood, theoretically, can be transformed into a new pallet hundreds of times. Millions of tons of wood – and trees – are saved this way every year in China.
Previous ‘Scenes from a Junkyard Planet’ can be found here.