What Happens to Construction Waste Wood? A Bangor University Review for TroCymru
Research Partnership: Bangor University BioComposites Centre
TroCymru has partnered with Bangor University's BioComposites Centre to build an evidence base for circular construction waste management in Wales. The first output of this partnership is a comprehensive 14-page review: "The Recycling of Demolition and Construction Waste", authored by Prof. Graham Ormondroyd — one of the UK's leading researchers in wood science and bio-based materials.
This article summarises the key findings. The full report is available to download at the bottom of this page.
The Scale of the Problem
Construction and demolition (C&D) waste accounts for approximately 25% of total global waste and the construction sector is responsible for 39% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The review categorises C&D waste into two types:
Type I (non-hazardous): concrete, masonry, brick, stone, soil, asphalt — the bulk materials that dominate by weight.
Type II (hazardous): insulation, electrical wiring, cables, fluorescent lamps, asbestos-containing materials, lead-based paint, and mercury-containing components. These require specialist handling and disposal.
The waste management hierarchy — avoidance, reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery, disposal — provides the framework, but the review identifies five persistent challenges that prevent the construction sector from moving up that hierarchy.
Five Challenges in C&D Waste Management
1. Economic Feasibility. Landfilling remains cheaper than recycling in many cases. Reuse-oriented demolition requires higher labour costs, though these can be offset by avoided landfill charges — particularly as Wales's Landfill Disposals Tax rises to £130.75 per tonne in 2026.
2. Policy and Regulation. The UK is increasingly focused on high-resolution mapping of material stocks within existing buildings to support sustainable urban planning. However, policy implementation at the site level remains inconsistent.
3. Market Readiness. There is persistent resistance to recycled materials due to quality perceptions. Specifiers and contractors default to virgin materials even when recycled alternatives meet the required standards.
4. Sustainability Measurement. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is essential for comparing the environmental impact of different waste management approaches, but it is not yet routinely applied to C&D waste at the project level. The review highlights SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) as the relevant framework.
5. Business Models. Circular business models for construction waste are still emerging. The review notes a critical lack of decision-support tools for demolition contractors — exactly the gap that TroCymru's digital platform is designed to fill.
Deep Dive: Construction Waste Wood
The review's most detailed section examines waste wood — a material stream that is particularly relevant to WHQS retrofit programmes where kitchen units (MDF, chipboard), timber framing, and joinery are routinely removed.
The UK Waste Wood Market
The numbers are significant. In 2023:
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total waste wood handled in the UK | 4.5 million tonnes |
| Processed and used | 4.408 million tonnes |
| Sent to biomass energy | 2.73 million tonnes (63%) |
| Converted to panel products | 22% |
| Used for animal bedding/mulch | 8% |
| Exported for bioenergy | 5% |
Europe collects the greatest volume of post-consumer waste wood globally (76.8%), with Germany (19.7%), France (15.6%), and the UK (11%) as the largest contributors.
Wood Grading System
The review explains the A–D grading system developed by the Wood Recyclers Association, which is critical for determining the appropriate recycling route:
| Grade | Type of Wood | Recycling Route |
|---|---|---|
| A | Clean untreated wood, packaging | Panel products, animal bedding |
| B | Business waste, treated non-hazardous | Panel products, biomass energy |
| C | Municipal waste, treated non-hazardous | Biomass energy (with controls) |
| D | Hazardous waste, CCA-treated | Specialist disposal only |
For TroCymru's operations, this grading system directly informs how we categorise and route timber waste from retrofit sites. Kitchen carcasses (chipboard, Grade B) follow a different pathway to clean timber offcuts (Grade A) or treated external joinery (potentially Grade C/D).
The Biomass Energy Question
One of the review's most important findings is that 63% of UK recycled wood now goes to biomass energy — up from just 12.6% in 2007. While this diverts wood from landfill, the review argues that burning waste wood for energy may be premature, as it cuts short the potential for materials to cascade through multiple reuse cycles before eventual energy recovery.
This aligns with TroCymru's approach: we prioritise reuse and material recycling over energy recovery, keeping materials at their highest value for as long as possible.
Emerging Innovations
The review identifies several emerging technologies and practices that could transform how construction waste wood is managed:
Wood Fibre Insulation. A company in Wales — MDF Recovery — is working with Bangor University to develop 'Pillo', a loose-fill insulation product made from recycled MDF. This could create a circular loop where MDF removed from WHQS retrofits is processed into insulation for future housing projects.
Reclaimed Timber for Engineered Wood. Research is underway into manufacturing CLT (Cross-Laminated Timber) and glulam from reclaimed demolition timber. This requires careful deconstruction rather than demolition, and good metal detection before processing.
Wood-Cement Composites. Panels using Portland cement and waste wood particles offer potential for structural and insulation applications, with the cement helping to stabilise any residual contaminants in the wood.
Nanocrystalline Cellulose. Waste MDF has been identified as a potential source for extracting cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) — high-value materials used in bioplastics, composites, and biomedical applications.
Pyrolysis and Biochar. Decontaminated wood waste can be pyrolysed to produce biocrude and biochar. Biochar has applications in soil improvement, carbon sequestration, and even energy storage.
What This Means for TroCymru
This research partnership with Bangor University strengthens TroCymru's evidence base in three ways:
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Material knowledge. Understanding the grading, contamination, and recycling routes for each waste stream allows us to make better routing decisions on site — sending materials to their highest-value destination rather than defaulting to mixed skips.
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Carbon accuracy. The review's data on waste wood markets and recycling routes informs the carbon factors we use in our platform, ensuring that our CO₂e calculations reflect actual end-of-life pathways rather than generic assumptions.
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Innovation pipeline. Emerging technologies like wood fibre insulation from recycled MDF could create new destination routes for materials captured through TroCymru's platform — turning waste from Welsh retrofits into insulation for Welsh homes.
Download the Full Report
The complete 14-page review — "The Recycling of Demolition and Construction Waste" by Prof. G Ormondroyd, Bangor University BioComposites Centre — is available for download.
Download the Bangor University Report (PDF)
TroCymru partners with leading Welsh research institutions to build the evidence base for circular construction waste management. Contact us [blocked] to discuss how our platform and research partnerships can support your programme.