OSB-Not as Green as Advertised?

OSB—Not as Green as Advertised?

I just ran across your Web site during research on oriented-strand board (OSB) mills and was dismayed to see how you’ve succumbed to the green-washing of engineered lumber companies. There is a forest feeding frenzy playing out in the eastern U.S. as industries rush back to remow the native forest after a 70-year recovery period. This industrial infestation is coming in the form of high-capacity chip mills (over 100 new ones in the last decade); pulp and paper companies that have overcut softwoods and are now using hardwoods; rapidly escalating exports of raw chips and pulp to global markets; and the engineered building products companies racing to mow down remaining native forests as fast as possible. The companies producing pulp and paper and engineered building materials are competing to cut down the youngest forests the fastest, with the most mechanization and efficiency, maximizing profit for the fewest people.

While claiming how “green” and “efficient” OSB, LSL (laminated-strand lumber) and the like are, vast areas of critical native forests are being cleared to establish mono-culture plantations or short-rotation sprout farms. No longer can we allow forests to mature to be processed into lumber. They are cutting the adolescents and gluing them together with highly toxic substances that negatively affect workers, home owners, habitat, ecosystems and the sustainability of the oikos for which you profess to care.

The sacrocsanct stockholder value and corporate profit motive are sacrificing our remaining native forests to feed and promote Western-style consumption to an insatiable global market. Macmillan-Blodel, a notorious old-growth pillaging corporation, now engaged in eastern native forest destruction, hardly warrants space in your “green” pages.

I would appreciate some consistency with your attempt at truly sustainable housing by addressing these issues. Other than that, I applaud your efforts. Please feel free to forward this and come down for a flyover of industry infested lands of the South. They’re coming to a forest near you next.

Denny Haldeman

Heartwood

Chattanooga, Tennessee