Circular Economy
Waste wood recycling in Uelzen is starting
At the Pfeifer site in Uelzen, the construction work for the new waste wood recycling plant is well advanced. The recycling of wood waste for EUROBLOCK pallet block production is to start in the current year and thus promote the circular economy of wood.
Every year, more than 8 million tons of waste wood are produced in Germany alone, which are recycled materially or energetically. The expansion of the material use is an important step to relieve the climate and to deal gently with the future material wood. In the waste wood processing plant in Uelzen, Pfeifer intends to process around 70,000 tons of waste wood of pollutant classes A1 and A2 annually in the future. These include products that are natural or finished with harmless adhesives or coatings, such as discarded pallets made of solid wood or transport boxes made of wood-based materials.
Civil engineering works for the waste wood recycling plant will start soon, which will visibly change the appearance of the plant.
Clear commitment to the cascade use of wood
”Our project ensures that the valuable resource wood remains in the recycling cycle for a longer time. We are making a contribution to the environment and developing waste wood as a secondary raw material for our pallet block production,“ reports Gernot Hormess, Managing Director of Pfeifer Holz Uelzen. The largest log factory in the group is the first to accept the challenge of converting log production from pure fresh wood to a fresh / waste wood mix.
Leonhard Scherer, Managing Director of the sales company EUROBLOCK, also emphasizes the circular economy idea: ”Due to the possibility of processing recycled wood from no longer reusable wooden pallets, packaging and lumber, EUROBLOCK pallet blocks are a prime example of the cascade use of wood.“
Leonhard Scherer
Managing Director
”Due to the possibility of processing recycled wood from no longer reusable wooden pallets, packaging and lumber, EUROBLOCK pallet blocks are a prime example of the cascade use of wood.“
Pfeifer wants to process around 70,000 tons of waste wood of pollutant classes A1 and A2 every year.
Significant growth on the factory premises
The construction work for the waste wood recycling plant will visibly change the appearance of the site in the coming months. By October, a 350-meter-long tubular belt conveyor is to be built, which will run over all buildings on the production site at a height of about 20 meters and is attached to huge pylons by means of ropes. A storage silo and cleaning tower, each almost 30 meters high, will also be built. The conveyor is used to transport the recycled wood chips from the storage silo to the belt dryers. The drying of the waste wood chips themselves requires only half as much energy as the drying of fresh chips, which are produced as a saw by-product directly at the site. Both types of chips are later mixed on a belt dryer and processed into pressboard pallet blocks for the pallet industry.
The Pfeifer Group is investing 50 million euros in the Uelzen site over the next few years.
Optimizations for the benefit of employees
Pfeifer currently employs 200 people in Uelzen in the areas of production, maintenance and administration. After an investment programme of EUR 10 million from 2019 to 2021, Pfeifer is investing a further EUR 50 million in the long-term safeguarding of the site from 2022 to 2024. In addition to the construction of the waste wood recycling plant, the most important measures include the renovation of the sawmill including the log yard and the increase of the cutting capacity from 500,000 to around 800,000 fixed meters. In the course of the waste wood project, a new hall heating system for the log factory is also being built. The first part of the modern heating system has already been completed, the second part will follow in March. "Improving the indoor air in the log production hall is one of our priority goals. With the new hall heating, we are taking a big step towards this overall project closer," Hormess said. The heat for the new heating is supplied by the company's own biomass cogeneration plant.