Urban Myths Explored

Both the timber industry and the recycling industry have their share of modern myths. From a random assortment of the many half-truths told nowadays, some seem to be re-told often enough they assume the proportions of a golden rule. Many lead consumers into false hopes while others just clutter the landscape. Here are some:

URBAN MYTH # 1. Recycled timber is more stable than kiln-dried timber.
Even if it can be argued, there is no profit in holding this view. Timber is a cellulose material which has the ability to acquire ambient moisture and swell - and to shrink appreciably after moisture loss. The rate at which this happens is critical to stability and ultimate integrity of timber products or installations. Gradual changes are better than rapid drying. All timbers used for furniture and flooring require proper handling and storage.

URBAN MYTH # 2. You need to choose a very hard native hardwood floorboard if you have dogs or children.
Most native hardwoods exceed 800kg/m3 in weight. You cannot measure the differential of normal wear between ironbarks (1130 kg/m3) and blackbutt (890 kg/m3) on a domestic floor. Hardness does not really influence the period between recoatings, despite the chatter about it, and is therefore not a primary consideration for consumers choosing between species. Focus instead on the 2mm of polyurethane that protects a floor. This is where kids and dogs will leave their mark. Choose wisely in a durable finish.

URBAN MYTH # 3. All verandah floorboards run at 90 degrees to the wall of building by tradition.
Yes, but there exists a strong tradition of fixing boards to run parallel to wall of building as well, so let not perceived tradition be the guiding rule of design in addition projects or new traditionally-styled dwellings. 
90 degree runs involve set-length timbers. The availability of set-length packs - particularly shorter lengths 1.5m to 2.1m - was very likely the driver for this practice in the late 19th century. Trying to achieve set length (minus joins) using random-length packs is very wasteful of timber. The fact that more native hardwoods are available in random-length packs nowadays should be the consideration that drives consumers towards the parallel-to-wall tradition. Any practice that looks good and wastes little is worthy of becoming a tradition.

URBAN MYTH # 4. Shipped to Australia as ballast….

I have heard this phrase applied to many building materials - including imported timber - Baltic Pine, California Redwood and Oregon. I'm never sure what it means to the teller? That the cargo in question had no commercial value? Or that it was freighted free of charge? 
Naturally, if the meaning is confined to the requirement to store heavy, bulk cargoes low over the keel, then terracotta tiles, slate and building stone probably arrived in this manner - But so what? How does this affect either the rate of freight or the retail value of the cargo? And how is one's interest piqued a century later by placement of cargo?  Between 1850 and the late 1890's, most ships arrived laden in Australian ports, but many were forced to leave in ballast. After 1900, as exports grew, the situation reversed and a number (always a minority) of ships arrived in ballast - usually rock - and departed laden with cargo. This was due primarily to navigation laws and restraint of trade. If a cargo consisted of marketable commodities and the ship carried both paid crew and insurance, then a viable freight rate would apply. History is full of odd moments and I would relish a tale where this trade found its true exception. But I never get the story. Just the bare and mysterious claim - as if the detail could be safely assumed.

If we value highly an item with a long past, is it an enhancement of this value that it was worth only a groat at the point of first sale?

What significance does it have to modern day repurchasers of these items? If we value highly an item or material with a long past, is it an enhancement of this value that it was worth only a groat at the point of first sale? To a middle class sensibility, yes. It's a minor thrill and a tag line for renovation tales around the BBQ. I believe this is what the teller understands when he says it. It explains a reluctance to allow further inquiry. In my view, it is a classic example of a fact of minor importance poorly understood and retold until it becomes an urban myth. 

The Ethics of Native Hardwoods:
In recent years, purchasers and specifiers of native hardwood have been led to believe they can boycott native forest hardwoods as ethically bad and specify a range of hardwoods which fall into the category of ethically sound or good. The 'branding' of ethical choice seems to have become the primary object of the mission. We have entered an era in which we look to tackle the big environmental issues of the day and then congratulate ourselves enthusiastically moments later for our first tottering steps in that direction. Certainly, there is good choice and bad choice in timber purchasing. There is an inherent wisdom or otherwise in most decisions we make. But a strictly applied code of ethics will founder. The old-school green consumers, the waste-agenda warriors, don't seem to require a badge as a reward for good choice. And the idea that a coded, labelled or branded resource which is demonstrably good and not evil might prove to be socially divisive rather than environmentally helpful.

URBAN MYTH # 5. This is plantation native hardwood. Therefore I can buy it with a clear conscience.
Besides availability being unlikely in 2007, the claim is often just spin. 
Under Kyoto definitions, a plantation is initiated by the planting of seed - or more often - seedlings. It is usually a monoculture, mechanically planted. Most State Forests are natural regrowths which pre-date seed technology and mechanisation. The essential difference between these two forest forms cannot be a credible basis for choice in timber purchase. The differential lacks even a basic ethical opportunity. 

Rescued Timbers
URBAN MYTH # 6. The timber is ethically sourced if the tree was felled to make way for roads or urban renewal. If it wasn't milled for timber, it would have gone to waste.
Sawlog is felled with the primary intent of milling for board. Rescued log is felled with secondary intent. It is the 'collateral damage' of urban renewal, dam or roadbuilding. The key difference between these two lies in motive for felling. However, unlike criminal law, intent is not a good practical basis for building a code of ethics for timber. We would have to judge whether clearance was optional or necessary, whether it was a good intention or a poor one. The alternative argument that the tree would otherwise end up as waste or firewood is a sound basis for using the timber as milled board, but the same reasoning could also ignore the intent of felling in native forests and judge only the usefulness of the outcome: sawlog or waste. I'm not knocking rescued timber. But the category has no gravitas. It's just an opportunity - not religion, not ethics. Of practical benefit, it may replace native forest products in some areas of use. So, by all means, buy some. 

URBAN MYTH # 7. Wood from rural salvage is ethically-sourced if the tree was standing dead in a paddock, at the end of its life, or ravaged by bushfire, disease or die-back.
Again, nothing to do with ethics. It's just practical. There's even a practical argument for felling a living tree with a lifespan of exactly 100 yrs at the 99.5 year mark because its residual ammenity as a shade tree, habitat, soil-stabiliser or rural landscape icon is so limited. It's purely hypothetical. All things die sooner or later. Rural salvage is a category but isn't a privileged club. Many of the trees in old-growth native forests have limited lifespan – or would be a greater amenity removed to allow the vigorous youngsters canopy access. It's not an ethical argument. It's not even a basis for action beyond normal forestry practices. Merely an observation of the way things are. Burnt logs need to be harvested quickly before they rot; firebreak salvage is better milled than chipped; So many scenarios! Just one category!

The forest argument, broadly speaking, is not an ethical one. It's a practical one. We need to set aside unique areas from access to logging. The Styx, the myrtle forests of the Tarkine, slow-growing southern cool-climate forests, tropical rainforests, iconic areas in other states. Why? Because they have a higher value - in a broad sense - as forests than they would as timber. We need to reduce the scale of native forest logging. We need to limit our use of sawlog to higher-value use and replace construction hardwood use with plantation softwood or engineered alternatives.

Boycott as a strategy attempts a kind of fundamental separation from our traditions and our past - It asks us to put ourselves at a moral remove; on an ethical plane looking downwards, crossly.

Of ultimate importance, we need to use at a rate equal to replacement – and in a genuine way. Ironbark for ironbark; blackbutt for blackbutt. Not fast-growing pithy E.Globulus for our genuine eucalypt royalty. To proceed wisely from here asks for ownership from specifiers and timber consumers. Our country. Our forests. Our forest industry. The alternative is a refusal to own or participate. Ethical boycott of native hardwood as a strategy attempts a kind of fundamental separation from our traditions and our past - It asks us to put ourselves at a moral remove; on an ethical plane looking downwards, crossly. Ultimately, it leads to division in our communities and the worst kinds of spin doctoring. We always seem to need political change. We may need both private and public enterprise. But first we need to control the agenda of change for our own native forest industry.

 

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