Lumber not from tree developed

Now, you can have lumber without cutting a tree.

The product has been called "palwood", which means palwa wood. Palwa is the native word for coconut frond or midrib, from which palwood is made.

Credited for the development of this lumber is Noel V. Biera, a civil engineer and currently an instructor at the College of Engineering, Jose Rizal Memorial State College, Dapitan City.

His research, titled "PALWOOD: Producing Abundant Lumber Without Cutting Precious Trees," won the first prize in the Likha Award (Outstanding Creative Research, Housing and Construction Category) during the 2002 National Inventors’ Week.

Biera explained that palwood is a reconstituted or reengineered lumber and panels that uses coconut fronts as its raw materials and synthetic resin as its binder.

In China and locally in the Visayas, he said, bamboo is being used as raw materials for engineered lumber and panels. Also locally, rattan furniture manufacturers use rattan wastes as raw materials for engineered lumber and panels called "permacane".

"In terms of raw materials supply, palwood has the advantage, Biera said.

Bamboo is not that abundant and supply cycle is long, while rattan is becoming an endangered species.

On the other hand, coconut fronts are abundant, renewable, and available all year round and common throughout the country. For instance, the Philippines has three million hectares planted to no less than 300 million coconut trees.

Biera added: Coconut three can yield 3.6 billion cubic meters or 3 billion board feet of commercial lumber and panels, sufficient for the country’s annual domestic requirement.

"If the coconut fronds are sold at P.50 each," he computed, "our coconut farmers will earn a direct corporate income of P1.8 billion annually. And our coconut farmers will have P360 million available annually to finance their livelihood projects to uplift their economic status."

Moreover, the wood volume of the 3.6 billion coconut fronds is equivalent to the volume of lumber that can be derived from cutting at least one million trees having an average diameter of .65 meter and eight of 20 meters. – RAF