Total forest areas in Malaysia are about 5.9 million hectares. Only 1.29% of the total area is allowed for logging industry. The balance is mainly for permanent forest estate, forest plantation, state land, and wildlife reserve and annual coupe for permanent forest estate. Wood industries are mainly referred to the logging industry, saw milling industry, the panel product industry (plywood, veneer, particle board, and medium density fibre board), the moulding

industry and the furniture industry. The forest industries are rapidly moving away from manufacturing low value products to value added products. These industries generated different type of biomass residues namely sawdust, off cut and wood barks. A waste minimization program is implemented in the wood based industries due to shortage of tropical wood supply. A value added such as particle board and finger joints are manufactured from the wood waste for the furniture industry.

The wood industries maximized the biomass residues into the value added products. The residue such as off-cut from the saw mills is used as fuel for the kiln drying or sold as boiler fuels. The middle portions of the log from the plywood and veneer mills are used as boiler fuels. The remaining wastes are mainly the bark and the saw dust. In the isolated areas they are burned in the incinerator or boiler to produce heat.

The generation of biomass residues from the wood based industry is declined due to limited supply of logs and maximization of residues into value added product. The biomass from the processing plants is used as fuel for their combined heat and power plant or sell to the potential users such as brick manufactures. The chart below shows the estimated potential energy and electricity from the waste generated from the saw mills, plywood and moulding plants.