No buts, it’s all trunks
A five-day vigil at the Eden chipmill in mid-July has proven conclusively that the woodchipping industry does not use waste wood.
Members of the Bega based Chipstop group documented:
- a.. an average of 132 trucks per day entering the chipmill.
- b.. of those almost two thirds were carrying mature age native forest or old growth.
- c.. less than 30% of trucks carried thinnings or regrowth logs.
- d.. about 10% of trucks carried woodchips
These figures are in stark contrast to claims made by Nippon (Daishowa), which claims 20% of its input is woodchips from sawmills and that thinnings now form the major part of its business.
The conservationists at Eden monitored all log trucks entering the chipmill from 6.05am on Monday until about 3.30pm on Friday, when truck traffic stopped.
There are no butts, crowns or branches as the chipmill cannot process anything other than logs. Harriet Swift / Jill