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The leaders’ summit at COP26 delivered pledges promising to end deforestation and cut methane emissions by 30% of 2020 levels by 2030. We welcome both commitments; we are in the business of saving wood so it will come as no surprise that the forestry pledge is close to our hearts, but did you know how important our work is in fighting methane emissions?
When Richard Mehmed set up the country’s first wood recycling project in 1998, almost all waste timber was being sent to landfill. There it would decay and give off methane, a gas that has now been found to be responsible for a significant proportion of the 1C of warming the world has already experienced.
Methane has received less focus than CO2 in the fight against global warming as it stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time. The potential benefits of limiting emissions are huge – scientists believe it could help the world avoid 0.3C of warming by 2040.
The growth of wood recycling by chipping over the last 20 years has meant that far less wood is ending up in landfill than was the case in 1998. However, the Wood Recyclers Association estimates that at least 600,000 tonnes of UK waste wood is unprocessed and is at risk of being landfilled annually. We are proud to have been in the vanguard of keeping wood out of landfill and of course we guarantee that none of the timber we collect will ever end up in the ground.
