THE WOOD PRODUCTS INDUSTRY
More than 5,000 wood and paper products make our lives better each day. Chances are you ate some wood today, wore it, and brushed your teeth with it. Everything form baby food to rayon to toothpaste to football helmets and diapers are made from trees. Chemists have unlocked the secrets of converting tree fibers and paper-pulping residues into a wealth of products. See how many of these products you would guess came form trees, and prepare to be amazed.
We All Use Wood Products Daily
Homes, furniture, and paper are products we associate with the forests, but there are thousands more. Aspirin and other medicines, film, plastics, paints, computer casings, shoe polish, and charcoal are just a few of the products that come from our forests.
Each Montanan uses about 600 pounds of paper each year, according to statistics, and this demand is expected to double by the year 2030. Of the total forest products produced in Montana each year, an amount equivalent to 20,000 semi-truck loads of logs is used in Montana each year.
Every week the Sunday "New York Times" uses enough paper to equal 75,000 trees that are eight inches in diameter at the base. In a year, "The Missoulian" utilizes the paper from more than 28,000 such trees. Building an average 1800 square foot home uses 10,000 board feet of lumber, or two semi-truck loads of logs.
As consumption grows, so, too, does our reliance on our forests and our wood products industry employees.
Paper Products
computer paper, library books, coffee filters, tissues, disposable diapers, postage stamps, paper towels, milk cartons, paper plates, movie tickets, newspapers, animal bedding, grocery bags, building insulation, and play cards
Solid Wood Products
lumber, plywood, furniture, toothpicks, baseball bats, canoe paddles, guitars, backyard play sets, ax handles, charcoal, wooden blocks, rulers, birdhouses, crutches, fences, and sleds
Bark
Cork, anticancer drugs, shoe polish, cosmetics, poultry bedding, oil, spill control agents, and garden mulch.
Wood Alcohol's
Colognes and solvents.
Torula Yeast
Baby foods, imitation bacon, cereals, vegetarian foods, baked goods and beverages.
Cellulose
Rayon clothing, sanding sealers, pressure sensitive adhesives, floor tiles, toothpaste, carpeting, upholstery, food additives, thickeners, carbon papers, cigarette filters, handles for tools, football helmets, hardhats, irrigation pipe, plastic twine, computer casings, luggage, placemats, sandwich bags.
Lignosulfates
Cleaning compounds, ceramics treatments for hypertension and Parkinson's Disease, insecticides, hair spray, deodorants, fungicides, grouting, laundry stain remover, and artificial vanilla flavoring. |
