Optimizing Wood Pellet Production from Wood Waste

The volume of wood waste from the woodworking industry in Indonesia is estimated to reach 25 million tons every year. Every wood processing will produce waste such as sawdust, wood shavings, wood chips and so on, the volume of which is around 40% of the raw materials used. However, there is still a lot of waste that has not been processed so it pollutes the environment. Meanwhile, the development of the Indonesian timber industry continues to increase due to high export demand, even though actual realization of the timber industry is still low.

It is estimated that the Indonesian wood industry can actually be optimized until its production capacity reaches 91 million cubic meters per year, but in reality in 2022 the forest products industry will only be able to produce 42.19 million cubic meters per year or around 48.7% of its optimum capacity. There are 3 factors that cause the low realization of the wood industry, namely, efficiency of the wood industry, problems related to raw materials and market availability.

The low efficiency of the woodworking industry is due to the use of old machines or traditional methods for production. Meanwhile, problems related to raw materials are caused by the reduction in forest areas due to the large amount of development that causes forest land to change its function. Efforts to maintain a stable and sustainable supply of wood raw materials need to be made, including land rehabilitation programs and coaching for community forest farmers. National mapping of wood potential also needs to be carried out so that industry can obtain information regarding the supply of raw materials needed. Market availability is also an important factor in the development of the timber industry, so the ability to access information and identify market aspects, both domestic and international, is needed.

As the wood industry increases, wood waste also increases. An environmentally conscious industry certainly pays great attention to waste issues so that ideally it can achieve zero waste. These wastes are raw materials for wood pellets. The need for wood pellets continues to increase in line with the global decarbonization trend. Just as the woodworking industry requires consistency to maintain its products, so does wood pellet production. The consistency of the wood pellet raw material mixture is the key to the quality of wood pellets, including making production optimal.

In large woodworking factories, wood pellet production can be carried out simply by using its own waste, so that apart from solving the waste problem according to the zero waste concept, it can also be used as a new business development. Meanwhile, in the small - medium woodworking industry, because there is insufficient wood waste, some wood waste as raw material for wood pellets needs to be sourced from other places. A wood pellet factory can also be made independently, namely with raw materials that come 100% from other people's woodworking factory waste, meaning that the wood pellet factory is not owned by a wood processing industry. So basically a wood pellet factory is a factory or installation for processing wood waste that produces products with high selling value and is in line with the global decarbonization trend.