There's Cash in that Trash

Finding the Cash in that Trash

We can’t build the circular supply chain one company at a time, but you can one INDUSTRY at a time if the goal is putting the waste to work for the benefit of businesses’ bottom line. That’s just practical. Profits pay for groceries, raises, healthcare, and capital equipment.
No profits = No jobs.

One of the best examples of a profit driven circular supply chain comes from the metals industry. Metal scrap is routed back into the manufacturing stream because everyone makes a little money for their efforts, and that money comes from TRADE not taxes.

The Unifying Force

There’s only one way to guide an entire industry, and that’s through their trade association. Trade associations hold a uniquely powerful role in designing and implementing profit driven circularity at scale, so we get this done inside of a dozen years, not a hundred. If you think of an industry as a tree the trade association is the trunk of that tree, and the common connection point from root to tip.

The Woodworking & Furniture Industry Takes the Lead

The July 2024, The Association of Woodworking and Furniture Suppliers, and Supply Chains for Good launched the première, “There’s Cash in that Trash” program to design, and implement profit driven sustainability. This program benefits manufacturers of wood, and furniture products, and their suppliers of goods, services and machinery.

Not so fun fact: Today less than 5% of the wood in the USA is recycled.

Supply Chain Nerd Alert

Our current state is primarily the take-make-dispose cycle which is also called a Linear Economy as pictured on the left compared to a Circular Economy shown on the right. To build a supply chain you need to link buyer to seller, so the initial research for this program has been determining where the waste typical to woodworking and furniture manufacturing industry has current, and potential uses that folks would pay good money for.

Typical woodworking and furniture industry waste includes wood, upholstery fabric, foam, metal, and plastics, but our research has shown that the highest volume of waste that the industry is dealing with is mixed wood waste which has resins, finishes, and bits of plastics like laminates in it. Mixed wood waste, unlike pure wood waste, has limited uses so we are focusing on solving that problem first.

The solutions we’ve found that can use tons of wood waste are construction materials such as lightweight concrete, insulation and synthetic wood, and to burn it to generate power, a process called, “Biomass”. The simplest, most obvious solution for the factory producing wood waste is to use it to generate their own power. This waste to energy solution is very attractive to business owners because it eliminates their utility and waste disposal bills, both of which are rising costs.

Fun fact: MDF, and particle board are examples of something made through a circular process. The waste from the tree is routed back into the manufacturing process to make a new product that reduces how many natural resources, like trees, are extracted. This was developed as a profitable use for wood waste in the 20^th century.

BURN IT! WHAT ABOUT AIR QUALITY?

Concerns about waste to energy are centered around air quality, however technology has been developed to solidly address this concern. We are intentionally implementing in Southern California first to assure we meet the area’s exceptionally high air quality standards.

Fun Fact: It’s working now. Over 80% of the power used by California’s timber industry is generated through their own on-site waste to energy operations.

Waste to Energy is a Win/Win

Additional benefits are that transportation emissions would be reduced since we would stop shipping the wood waste and, in the event, major blackouts manufacturers with waste to energy operations can be their community’s Power Resiliency Centers providing critical power for emergency needs.

Fun Fact: In California there’s a great deal of concern about the ability of the power grid to support state plans to electrify the heavy weight fleet. This would reduce strain on power infrastructure by taking entire manufacturing facilities off the grid.

The wood waste to energy process can create biochar which has multiple uses including converting it to the graphite used in EV batteries which eliminates some of the mining. It’s well known within the supply chain community that there is heavy human and environmental cost to E.V.s that largely comes from mining. We could have a solution here to reduce mining and increase the supply of critical minerals for E.V.s.

Supporting Skilled Trade Education
Both the Association of Woodworking and Furnishing Suppliers, and Supply Chains for Good are committed to helping children so we are also connecting manufacturers to K through 12 skilled trade programs to donate materials to be used by students. This is a solution for only a
small amount of waste but we are also connecting employers to future employees, and educators.

Contact Info:

C.J. Nord, Founder

Supply Chains for Good Cell 562 209 3002 cjnordcpm@gmail.com

Tovi Spero

AWFS Cell (908) 723-1295 Tovi@awfs.org