Any material used in manufacture not only requires disposal at the end of its useful life, but also produces waste, or residues, during its initial manufacture. In the case of timber, many of the products made may be recycled and the residues also re-cycled and used in the manufacture of further products. Much of the timber produced by sawmills goes through several further processing stages before reaching its final end use, each stage producing its own volume of wood residues. On average, less than half of the raw material ends up in the primary product, the remainder being residues. For British-grown timber, these residues constitute a valuable fibre resource, with the potential for recycling in a variety of ways.
Recycling is also beneficial economically.
Both incineration and landfill are costly and incineration is unsuitable for some materials. Timber products and recycling After processing in sawmills, sawlogs are used for solid timber products for construction, flooring, furniture, fences and gates. The residues from the processing include sawdust, wood chips and bark. Wood chips are also used in paper pulp manufacture. Sawdust and bark are used in other industries, such as farming, horticulture and silviculture.