Originally Posted by
Otto
I'm not an expert on the forest industry, but It's my understanding that there has been a dramatic shift away from pulp over the past several years. Wood pellets, primarily for power generation, is growing steadily. This, and problems with supply due to Mountain Pine Beetle and other pests, means there will be an increasing scarcity of wood fiber (especially when home construction ramps up again). I did some reading on wood recycling over the winter and it appears that there are companies involved in this. I have no idea what used wood fiber is going for, but money follows scarcity. If someone has access to significant volumes of waste wood, there may be an opportunity here.
Wood and wood pulp are different in that their markets are different, and the way they are recycled are different.
For example, wood eaten by Beatles can still be used to pulp, but cannot be used for construction.
So you are correct in that wood used for construction has become very expensive indeed. And this has caused some pressure on the wood pulping industry in the type that manufactures paper products. But so far as cardboard is concerned, it keeps going down because there is more and more of it. Just imagine how much cardboard enters the US every year from China, as more and more of our goods are Chinese made, more and more of the cardboard is as well.
The other side of the story is that there is a big controversy currently over the trees that Monsanto is creating that will not produce offspring, and have less lignin so that it's easier to produce pulp from them.
Monsanto and ArborGen set their sights on GM trees and grasses
Which I might add seems totally insane to me considering that Hemp fibers do it far better, and I'm not so keen on the idea of introducing GMO trees that have a drop dead gene built in, sounds dangerous to me.
Scott
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