Is there such a thing as sustainable wood? Yes, there is.

When it comes to timber harvesting in Pennsylvania, one of the questions that gets brought up most often is just how sustainable wood is. Sure, it grows. But does it grow fast enough to replace what's removed? Can it be used as a primary building material regularly? And if it's so good, why aren't people using it more often?  Here at Green Ridge Forest Products, we've been Pennsylvania's premier timber buyers for decades– and we know a thing or two about the advantages of wood as a resource. Not only is wood affordable, reliable, and easily sourced: it also just may be the most sustainable resource in our ecosystem.

Wood can be recycled over and over again.

When you think of metal, steel, or concrete, you probably don't think of them as recyclable. That's because they aren't– at least not in the way you might think. Sure, some of these materials can be repurposed and re-used with the right processes, but those processes are expensive and less frequent than you might think. More often than not, unused materials are wasted and discarded. Wood, however, is one material that can be and is constantly re-used. Use a few pallets of wood to build a small guest house, and you can use the excess wood for a shed, a fence, or even a home addition. Have wood laying around? Complete a passion project with ease. With a bit of time and some creativity, you can use wood more effectively and less wastefully than any other primary building product on the market.

Wood is actually renewable.

Do you know what it takes to make metal or concrete from scratch? A heck of a lot of products that most definitely aren't renewable. Unlike every other common building material, wood, however, is 100% renewable. When you use tree harvesting practices as efficient as ours, you can ensure there will always be new, strong trees to take the place of the ones you remove. No matter how much would you need for your project, trees will always grow back when harvesting is properly planned and done methodically. That, in large part, is why you won't see us chopping down trees at random. We plan out every step of our harvesting process to ensure the wood we remove is always replaced.

There's a lot more wood than most people think.

Wood is a protected resource, which means there's a lot of it that's under lock and key. While some people assume harvesting timber means getting rid of all the wood in the land, there are laws that protect against the amount of wood that can be harvested at any given time. There are even regulations that dictate what times of year certain types of hardwood and softwood can be harvested to ensure there's always a large amount of wood available. The amount of forest growth significantly exceeds the amount harvested year to year, which means there hasn't ever been a time where we were actually depleting wood resources faster than they were being replaced. And, with the number of options available for wood's reuse, there's a good chance we'll never even come close to using the amount of wood that grows in any given year.

The question of whether wood is actually sustainable is an age-old one, but the fortunate answer is a resounding "Yes!". When harvested correctly and intentionally, wood is a flourishing resource with benefits that far surpass the most common building materials. If you're curious about selling your wood, the team at Green Ridge Forest Products has years of experience helping landowners make the best decisions for their wood and land. Contact us today to learn more about our services, and how we can help you!