Coming Soon--MDF from Urban Waste Wood

A new Canadian company has been formed with big plans—to make demolition wood and old pallets into new medium-density fiberboard (MDF). The CanFibre Group Ltd. already has a ten-year contract with Laidlaw Waste Systems to receive 100,000 tons (91,000 tonnes) of waste wood per year. In early summer CanFibre expects to begin converting an old steelworking facility in Toronto into a state-of-the-art panel manufacturing plant. In spite of the departure of some early investors on bad terms, they expect to have MDF panels on the market early in 1997, according to Chris Carl, executive vice president.

MDF (essentially high-grade particleboard) is used to make cabinets, furniture, and many other products. In addition to using the waste wood, CanFibre’s MDF will have very low formaldehyde emissions, because they will be using phenol formaldehyde resin instead of the industry standard: urea formaldehyde. Phenol formaldehyde is a heat-cured resin, making it more stable and weather resistant. CanFibre will install special steam-injection presses to speed up the curing time so they can compete with conventional products. CanFibre’s products will also have better physical characteristics than standard MDF, according to Carl.