From flooring and furniture to clothing and food, wood products are part of everyday life.
Over the decades, some of these products have started to be replaced with plastic.
“That's really unfortunate because if you look at the environmental footprint of using wood versus using plastic, wood always comes out as the environmental choice,” said Scott Bowe is a Professor of Wood Products at the University of Wisconsin. “Things like luxury vinyl tile, that's some great marketing, there's nothing luxurious about walking around on plastic when wood is a better alternative.”
Billions of cubic feet of wood are used globally each year.
Bowe says while there are different materials that could be used to make products currently made of wood, most have a larger carbon footprint.
“Wood can be harvested in a sustainable way. What are the alternatives? We could use fossil fuels to make more plastic. We could use concrete, which is very energy intensive,” said Bowe. “There's a number of substitutes that can replace wood, but they're not always the best environmental choice.”
Bowe will be talking about the importance of wood products and how ingrained they are in our everyday lives at this month’s Science on Tap Minocqua.
While he won’t be as focused on forest management, Bowe hopes people will recognize how important it is.
“It's all connected the forest management, the wood companies in Wisconsin, as well as the economic impact. It's over a $40 billion annual industry in the state of Wisconsin, and that's important for our economy,” said Bowe.
Science on Tap is Thursday, February 5 at 6:30 p.m. at Rocky Reef Brewing Company in Woodruff.
