In the wood industry three kinds of wastes are produced:

• blank wood wastes (sawdust, small chips, chips);

• treated wood wastes (residuals with glues and/or presence of paints);

• impregnated wood wastes (wood wastes impregnated with salt base preservatives).

Excluding the plants equipped with anti-pollution technology, for energy produc­tion purposes, it is possible to only use wood residuals and by-products which are not chemically treated (barking residuals, cut, pruning, etc.) or treated with prod­ucts that do not contain heavy metals or organic halogenated compounds (typical of wood treated with preservatives or other chemical substances) [2, 15].

The Italian furnishing industry of produces wooden wastes that are equal to 4.7 millions tons a year, of which 55% is not treated wood. Such a considerable residual quantity already has a market: it is applied for energy production purposes or as secondary raw materials for the production of pellets, panels or paper [2, 7, 16].

3.4.1 The cellulose and paper industry

From the paper industry, residuals appropriate for use as raw materials instead of energy residuals are obtained. Such residuals are mainly present as muds and they are generally produced from the water depuration process, both chemical-physical and biological.

In Italy, there is a lack of a strict regulation framework and, as has already happened in other European Community countries, it has resulted in the develop­ment of advanced forms of rubbish treatment. In Italy, in fact, only 25% of the energy recovery is obtained from the paper industry residuals against 50% in the European Union. Furthermore, the European Directive 2000/76 does not recognize all the paper production residuals as an adequate or clean fuel and this leads to the obligated disposal in dumps of residuals otherwise usable for the energy recovery [2, 17].

depuration □Muds — biol. dep.

□ Rejections □Muds

■ Not — dangerous

■ Dangerous