Plywood is one of the most widely used timber products manufactured from thin sheets of wood veneer.
The main advantages of such wood-based panel are a light weight and, at the same time, a very good mechanical strength.
CARB (California Air Resources Board) was established in 1967 as a department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency and consists of the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board and the Bureau of Air Sanitation.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was established in 1993 and supports socially beneficial, environmentally appropriate and economically viable management of the world's forests. It is international multi-stakeholder, not for-profit organization.
Plywood is constructed of odd number of wood veneer plies glued together and cross-bonded. Such construction provides stability, strength and high resistance to vibrations and shocks, warping and splitting. Plywood is manufactured of various wood species. For the production of European plywood are mostly used beech, birch, spruce, poplar. Birch plywood has fully birch plies. Plywood birch/alder has birch face layers in high grades and birch or alder in low grades. The core is birch/alder combined.
Regulation No 995/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council issued on October, 20, 2010 (known as Timber Regulation) lays down the obligations of timber market operators:
- commitment for EU traders placing timber products on the EU market for the first time to put into practice “due diligence”
- prohibition of placing on the EU market for the first time illegally harvested timber and timber products
The Egyptians were the first who thought about sticking several thinner layers of wood together to make one thick layer. Around 3500 B.C. they did it gluing thin layers of wood over low quality wood and invented the prototype of plywood. Immanuel Nobel, father of Alfred Nobel (the founder of Nobel Prize) is considered the inventor of plywood. Nobel found out that several thinner layers of wood bonded together would be stronger than one thick layer