The 2nd European Conference of COST Action E31 on „Towards a Higher Technical, Economical and Environmental Standards” in Bordeaux

Representatives from 23 countries participated in the meeting, including – apart from the European countries – representatives from Japan and the USA. Main lines of activities within the framework of COST Action E31 concern:

• ways of solving the issues of recovered wood management in Europe,
• analysis of the potential of recovered wood as a recyclable material and source of energy,
• methods for improving the IT base concerning recovered wood (in the technical, economic, environmental and statistic aspects),
• identification of promising solutions for the implementation of advanced systems of recovered wood management.

Photo: Wojciech Cichy

Representatives of the Wood Technology Institute (Wojciech Cichy, PhD (Eng), Asst. Prof. Andrzej Fojutowski, PhD (Eng)), who are members of COST Action E31 Management Committee, participated in the conference. 

Primary thematic areas touched upon at the conference were:

• market facets of post-use wood,
• characteristics and standardization of post-use wood,
• strategic activities towards increasing the amount of recovered wood,
• issues of designing wood products for a sustainable development.

22 plenary paper were presented at the conference, including those prepared by the ITD representatives – Wojciech Cichy, PhD (Eng) and Magdalena Czajka, MSc (Eng)entitled: „Properties of bio-fuels from post-use wood designed for co-firing with coal”. 

Photo: Wojciech Cichy

In addition to that other Institute employees presented their papers at the poster session: 

• Assc. Prof. Hanna Wróblewska, PhD („Research on application of compost from particleboard waste and waste from dry process fibreboards in willow Salix purpurea L culture”),
• Assc. Prof. Andrzej Fojutowski, PhD (Eng) („Assessment of leaching of wood preservatives by the accelerated biological method”). 
   

An interesting element of the conference was a field trip to a pilot industrial plant utilizing wood elements chemically contaminated – impregnated with creosote oil and agents of the CCA and CCB type and with other wood preservatives as well as coated with lacquers, paints and glued.