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By Veronica Beltran

reusing wood waste

Seaton Forest Products two years into wood waste recycling project

Aug 13, 2020 | 11:29 AM

SMITHERS—The Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. (FESBC) is helping a mill in the Bulkley Valley turn wood waste into products it can sell, while reducing carbon emissions and creating local jobs.

Seaton Forest Products, located nine kilometres from the Wet’suwet’en village of Witset and 30 kilometres west of Smithers, received $2.5 million from the FESBC in 2018. The company is now two years into its three-and-a-half year project which aims at diverting 170,000 cubic metres of fibre from distant cutblocks to manufacture into lumber and wood chips.

“This FESBC project supports the use of fibre that would otherwise go to waste, while creating jobs for local communities, including Indigenous communities.”—Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development

The project has allowed for the additional employment of 22 people, including 15 of who are from local Indigenous communities.

About half the recovered fibre is manufactured into cants – large squared-off logs that can be processed into smaller lumber products – and exported to China. The rest is chipped, sold to Pinnacle Renewable Energy in Smithers and processed into pellets.

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“While most larger mills require more wood and green wood, we are able to take the logs others cannot utilize and would have normally been either left in the bush and/or burnt.”— Andy Thompson, manager, Seaton Forest Products

Including the FESBC-funded fibre recovery, Seaton is able to secure a total of 80,000 cubic metres of wood waste a year. Using the wood waste means that it won’t be burnt to release carbon or left on site where it would pose as a wildfire hazard.