Abstract

The pioneers and settlers of America found forests which seemed to go on forever. The forests provided low cost building materials and shelter in those times and continued to do so on through the industrial revolution and up to the present day. Thanks to the foresight of a few foresters and politicians in the 1900 era, vast forestlands across the country were set aside on a multiple-use basis; an important precept of which was to provide a sustained and renewable timber harvest to bolster the nation's need for wood and wood products. Properly managed, these lands and those of private landowners can supply these needs indefinitely.

The wood resources also must be utilized effectively, so that the various wood products and papers will continue to be available in the necessary quantities at reasonable cost. Practices which better utilize smaller trees and wood residues, which were formerly wasted, to create useful composite materials are an extremely important segment of this entire system.

The wood composites industries in the United States have grown steadily for approximately 100 years. Product development has grown into production of a family of composites which can fill virtually every niche in the construction field, in furniture and cabinetry, as well as in numerous other applications for these products. The industry began with hardwood plywoods and has progressed through softwood plywood, insulation boards, hardboards, particleboards, medium-density fiberboards, waferboards and oriented strand boards, and finally structural composite lumber. From their beginnings, these products have filled needs in applications to which they were well suited. Some later arrivals have competed with earlier products and in some cases have partially or totally displaced them because they were more suited to the application or more economical, or sometimes both. Whereas it may not yet be totally practical, it is possible to build and furnish entire structures such as homes and businesses using only products from the wood composites group.

As the United States begins to rely more heavily on use of smaller trees for construction materials, the products from the composite industries form a most important portion of the country's needs for these products. As an example of the size of these industries, in 1994 wood-based composite products made with small logs, wood veneer, chips, shavings, and sawdust were produced at a level of 39.1 × 10⁶ m³.

Primarily owing to availability of economical wood products and building practices which utilize these products efficiently in warm, comfortable, and affordable housing, the United States is possibly the best housed nation on Earth.