Recycling is the core of our business

Sonae’s distinguishing feature from other chip board manufacturers is its raw material, recycled woodchips. Recycled wood provides more that 98% of the raw material for our products and contains a high percentage of packaging material and other forms of post consumer wood waste.

The general benefits of using recycled wood are:

• Wood is a renewable resource and carbon store

• Packaging made from wood can be recycled

• At the end of its lifecycle energy can be derived from the waste

• The process diverts wood waste away from landfill

The Cometer which empties recycled woodchip upon arrival at the Knowsley plant.

The UK’s Largest Wood Recycler

Sonae at Knowsley is the UK’s largest wood recycler, and uses around 1200 tonnes of wood waste per day.

As an Environment Agency accredited reprocessor, Sonae is authorised to issue Packaging Recovery Notes (PRNs) as evidence of the use of packaging wood being reprocessed into board.   The company has close links with the compliance scheme run by VALPAK which helps companies comply with directives on recycling. 

Income generated from the sale of PRN’s is then reinvested on site in projects to further improve recycling facilities.

Sonae is working with agencies such as WRAP -Waste and Resources Action Programme, WRA - WoodRecyclers Association and Valpak to develop wood recycling initiatives across the wood based panels industry.