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contributors [9]. Sweden, Italy, The Netherlands, Austria, and Norway also fall within the top 10 global producers of post-consumer waste wood. China is the second largest producer of waste wood globally (17.1%) and the Republic of Korea ranking eighth (3%), giving Asia a 23.1% share of the global total. Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria all import significant quantities of this recycled wood (over half a million tonnes each in 2023) [8]. These figures reflect a market that has expanded rapidly. Wood-based panels are a common destination for recycled wood. In the UK, in 2022, 1.0 million tonnes (29%) of wood from post-consumer waste was processed into wood-based panels, and a further 1.2 million green tonnes of sawmill residues were used (34%, post-industrial), alongside 1.2 million green tonnes of roundwood timber (35%). The remaining 3% was from imported material (0.09 million tonnes) [10]. This principle of approx. one-third from each source has continued for a considerable time in the UK, reflecting the well-established practice. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the quantities of end-of-life timber recycled, in order to consider the duration of carbon storage and the contribution of the circular economy to mitigating climate change [11]. Forster et al. [12], for example, highlighted the need to increase circularity in order to drive decarbonisation. Developments in the UK and Europe, during the first two decades of this century, have centred on reducing the quantity of wood entering landfill, and, in parallel, there has been an increased use of biomass for energy. Both of these factors have dramatically altered the wood recycling sector in the UK, with a dramatic shift from 2009, when a significant proportion went to landfill [13], to the present day, where this quantity is negligible. There has been a marked change in the quantities of waste wood being used as bioenergy. For example, in 2008, only 250,000 tonnes went into biomass energy [14], compared to 2.73 million tonnes in 2023 [15], an eleven-fold increase. This increase in wood for biomass energy has allowed the lower-quality recycled wood to be utilised (for example, treated or painted materials). However, the option for multiple life cycles of the wood fibre prior to its ultimate fate in energy recovery would be beneficial for the circular economy. The quantity of recycled wood which is converted into products is more stable. The largest is still particleboard, with a slight decrease to 1.0 million tonnes in 2023 [10] (in 2009 it was 1.2 million tonnes, which is very close to current values). The use of recycled wood in other uses, such as animal bedding and mulches, has also remained stable; for example, 390,000 tonnes went into animal bedding in 2008, and 350,000 tonnes in 2023. Thus, the additional material generated by deflection away from landfill appears to have been almost entirely consumed by the rapid growth of the biomass energy sector in the UK. These days, the circular economy is often proposed as a solution to reduce our extrac- tion of virgin resources and to improve the efficient use of the materials that we have in the technosphere [16–18]. The European Parliament has recently endorsed cascading of wood to promote the circular economy and climate change mitigation benefits within the RED III (Renewable Energy Directive III) legislation [19]. This is an acknowledgement of balance within and between climate change mitigation strategies. Even though timber is a renewable biobased material, recycling is still a valuable step as even renewable materials can become scarce, if the growth rate is lower than the market demand [20]. There is growing recognition, and even concern, that demand for wood resources will far outstrip supply by 2050 [21]. In future, competition between forest, farming, and other uses for the available land area and competition for timber are likely to increase. There will be a need for strategic choices in land management and resource efficiency [12,22–24]. In particular, competition between the bioenergy sector and the wood-based panel sector is anticipated [8,25,26].
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