Wood-Alternative Seekers Not Just Grasping at Straws

PULLMAN, Wash. — You won’t get a 2x4 from a stalk of nal grass. Granted, it’s not your typical grass--it’s almost like wood. It’s got the heft of a stalk of bamboo, and you can swing it like a baseball bat.

Oddly enough, the real strength of this stalwart grass comes when it is shredded, reduced to the almost-fluffy consistency of feathers.

In the industrial shop of the Wood Materials Engineering Laboratory at Washington State University, this fiber fills bins as big as dumpsters. In time, the fiber will be manufactured into panels that will look and perform like wood.

Once plants such as nal grass are shredded to fiber, they look quite similar. Wheat straw and rice straw look much the same as nal grass when prepared for manufacturing. And once they are made into a panel of medium-density fiber board, they behave much like the same product made of wood.

Expanding the use of alternative fibers is among the research goals at the wood materials lab, and there is a growing need around the world in this area of research.

In the United States, environmental regulators and industries are searching for less harmful methods of disposing of natural materials such as straw that were once considered byproducts.

But today, in an era when new uses for these fibers are growing, they are known by a new catch phrase, “co-products,” said Mike Wolcott, an associate professor in the university’s department of civil and environmental engineering.

In the United States, Wolcott said, the impetus to create value-added products from a waste product has come from environmental regulations, such as those designed to restrict the burning of rice and grass straw. These burning practices are recognized as threats to air quality.

There is another reason for creating useful wood substitutes: the “green market,” driven by consumer demand for ecologically friendly products, Wolcott said. While still in its infancy in the United States, that market is a growing economic force in Europe.

“The demand for green products really hasn’t panned out in the U.S. the way it has in Europe,” he said.

In parts of the developing world, where some nations are relatively poor in natural resources, making hay from crop waste is a logical source of fiber.

At the wood materials lab, all sorts of fibers--hemp, coconut husk, flax, rye, fescue, barley and oat--have been engineered into composite materials.

Some of these plants are grown exclusively for their fiber, and others have “co-products” useful for fiber.

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With crops such as wheat and barley, the straw is raw material for a value-added product that could keep some struggling farm communities from disappearing. Investors in Grangeville, Idaho, and Sprague, Wash., have investigated strawboard plants such as those in the Midwest.

The clamor for alternatives to wood often centers on the use of hemp, a fiber whose properties have been studied at the Washington State University lab. While its physical characteristics make it a viable raw material, it is embroiled in controversy.

“Unfortunately, here in the U.S. it comes into a lot of real political issues” because of its relationship to marijuana, Wolcott said of the plant.

Wood can be harvested year-round, he said, and does not need to be stored for long periods. But many alternative fibers must be harvested only once a year, then stored for the following year. Buying raw materials en masse can be costly, as is storing the materials in a moisture-controlled environment. These costs prevent the kind of rapid growth that would turn the industry into a player on the open market.

Forest economist Charles McKetta has seen products created from alternative fibers before, and he believes they may perform.

“But the economic feasibility was awful,” said the University of Idaho professor, because wood fiber is simply a much more affordable option in the United States.

“They see the physical presence of wheat straw and think that because we’ve got a lot of it, it would be a good thing,” he said.

But he does not believe alternative fibers will ever compete in the United States.

“If it made sense, we would see people using it,” he said. “It’s just that wood fiber is so cheap, and it’s getting cheaper.”

Environmentalists argue that the market is not bearing the total cost of wood fiber; factoring in those environmental costs, alternative fibers are more feasible than they initially appear.

“I would say we’re not paying the true cost of our wood products when we buy wood products,” said Larry McLaud of the Idaho Conservation League.

McKetta said what is practical will ultimately prevail, and in the United States, that is wood. If alternative fibers made sense, he said, people would use them.

He argued that manufacturing products using plants such as hemp and kenaf--plants grown solely for their fiber--could also be an undue burden on agricultural land that now is used for growing food.

But, Wolcott countered, to expect that the United States will begin using more alternative fibers is realistic because the demand for such products is growing.

“I don’t think there’s any question that this could augment . . . wood. But it’s not going to replace it,” he said.

He advises finding niche markets.

He added that as American timber corporations seek out new sources of fiber, they are less likely to turn to alternative fibers than to nations that have earned the nickname “wood baskets” for their potential to export wood to timber-hungry nations. “Wood basket” regions could include places in Southeast Asia, South America and Siberia.

In researching innovative materials that include sawdust, plastic composites and fiber alternatives, Wolcott said, the challenge is wise tinkering: “It’s the intelligent use of a combination of materials. We can help reduce some of the technical barriers that allow you to do it.”