Facts about wood
Why wooden pallets?
There are several reasons why wooden pallets are the best solution...
- persistentand durable,
- functional and safe,
- available in large quantities,
- biodegradable,
- in accordance with the highest environmental standards,
- hygienic.
Wood is the perfect, natural and environmental packaging for the food industry.
Laboratory results from both Germany and Switzerland show that wood is as good as any other material. In fact these studies show that bacteria have a greater capacity to survive on plastics than on wood. Certain types of wood had superior hygienic qualities over plastic.
Source: Nordisk Industrifond, Wood in the Food Industry
Wood is naturally renewable, and used pallets and packages can be easily recycled.
Using wood reduces climatic changes.
Using wood instead of other building materials saves on average 0.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide per cubic metre.
Source: Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management
Wood has long been a traditional packaging material. Nevertheless, for some time, it's been discriminated and undervalued. The reason for this is insufficient knowledge about the benefits of raw wood or irrational fear about the excessive harvesting of forests.
The forests are growing at an unprecedentedly high and increasing rate that is well above the volume harvested, so the amount of wood in forests continues to increase.
Source: Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe, 2007
All European countries have policies and practices requiring reforestation. Although the number of trees planted per hectare will vary depending on the species, site and management system, it will always be more than the number cut, in order to allow for natural losses and for the forest to remain well stocked.
Currently just 64% of the annual increment of Europe’s forests is harvested and both forest area and standing stocks of timber are increasing annually.
Source: FAO, State of the World’s Forests, 2003