Assessing environmental sustainability of particleboard production process by ecological footprint

This work presents the results from the environmental sustainability assessment of a wood-based particleboard manufacturing process located in Spain, using the Ecological Footprint methodology for the analysis. The consumption of material resources revealed as the major contributor to the Ecological Footprint due to the high amounts of roundwood used as particleboard component. Hence, the effect of increasing the ratio of recycled wood wastes employed for particleboard production was explored, obtaining a range for the indicator from 0.896 to 0.020 gha m−3 particleboard, corresponding to substitution ratios from 0 to 100%. These results suggest that the effort for improving environmental sustainability should be mainly focused on material resources category, although further study is required on types and ratios of recycled material used and their influence on particleboard's quality.

► The ecological footprint (EF) of a particleboard production process has been assessed.
► The influence on EF of recycled wood as raw material was studied.
► The EF mainly depended on raw materials rather than on energy consumption.
► The increase of recycled wood ratios allowed important reductions in EF.
► The results suggest important improvements in the environmental sustainability of this process.