Philippines: Technology versus Wood Pest Spread

In the Philippines, the Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) in a joint project with Nippon Express Phils. Corp. has developed a technology that could help eliminate pest spread in the industries relying heavily on wood as raw material. The heat treatment (HT) technology uses a 1000 board feet capacity furnace type timber dryer and requires that the pallet's wood core be treated at 56°C for 30 minutes. The optimum HT time is 5 hours and average operation cost is 46% cheaper than methyl bromide fumigation. Moreover MB fumigation is hazardous to human health as it is 60 times more damaging to the ozone layer than chlorine and is responsible for 5-10% of the ozone depletion. This also renders wood non-recyclable.

Source: Techmonitor.net, March-April 2009