Director’s Presentations and Insights from International Visits, Conferences and Meetings
Professor Singh has had a busy couple of months, attending conferences, delivering presentations, and establishing global collaborations. She participated in the International Conference on Overhead Lines and presented "Wood Poles: Environmentally Positive Until the End - Timber Circularity in Australia." An intriguing highlight was learning about the North American Wood Pole Council (NAWPC), a federation of three organisations representing the wood-preserving industry in the U.S. and Canada: the Western Wood Preservers Institute, the Southern Pressure Treaters’ Association, and Wood Preservation Canada. They have produced a technical bulletin on utility poles and emphasised the concept of Product Stewardship. In the U.S., entities responsible for generating wood poles must contact their state and local regulatory authorities to determine proper management and disposal practices. However, similar to Australia, the lack of harmonisation in regulatory requirements across states was noted as a significant challenge.
In April 2024, the American Wood Protection Association (AWPA) invited Professor Singh to deliver the Colley Hartford Lecture at their 120th Annual Meeting in Portland, Maine. Her lecture, "Harmonizing Timber Circularity: A Comprehensive Approach to Sustainable Wood Resource Management in Australia," was well-received. Additionally, Professor Singh, Dr Nami Kartal, and Mr Juan Vargas Garcia attended the annual conference of the International Research Group on Wood Protection (IRG-WP) held in Knoxville, Tennessee, in late May 2024. The Centre presented a total of six papers at this conference. Professor Singh also facilitated a discussion session on "Toward a Circular Economy for Wood Protection," where there was consensus on the future fibre shortage, underscoring the need for wood reuse and recycling. The session also explored the terminology shift from "waste" to "resources" and highlighted that in many European countries, landfilling of all waste types is prohibited, with approximately 90% of waste wood being incinerated and only 10% being reused.
In June, Professor Singh attended the IUFRO World Congress in Sweden, and the SWST conference in Slovenia, where she was honoured as the "Women Ambassador – Creating the Future of Wood Science" by the International Society of Wood Science and Technology. Professor Singh remarked that it was inspiring to see many international colleagues pursuing similar goals in timber circularity. However, she noted that the situation in Australia presents unique challenges due to the widespread use of CCA-treated timber and the geographical dispersion of resources, which complicates transport logistics and recycling efforts. Our Timber Circularity Project addresses not only environmental concerns but also the economic viability, logistics, and regulatory challenges of recycling timber into higher-value products. Additionally, our work on mapping geospatial data to visualise resource distribution garnered significant interest, with various international colleagues expressing a desire to collaborate on this and other project tasks.