Each year 36 million trees fall due to decay, disease, natural disasters or clearing for new development. The vast majority of those trees are either burned, sent to a landfill or ground up for mulch, which wastes energy and causes carbon emissions.
Now, new technology is being used to find, transport and recycle that wood and make it useful once again.
Cambium is a startup aiming to disrupt the wood recycling space. Its Baltimore-based researchers are working on new ways to track, treat and transfer old wood into the supply chain. It bills itself as the platform “where timber meets tech.”
“We make it really easy to source wood that would have otherwise been wasted and we build technology for the wood industry so that we can save material, create new local jobs and address climate change at scale,” said CEO Ben Christensen.
Every piece of Cambium’s “carbon smart” wood has a barcode. Scan it, and Cambium’s app will identify what the species is, when it was milled and what its grade is.
Cambium’s technology helps find, recycle and then deliver the wood across the United States and to parts of Canada. The company works with local tree care services, trucking companies and saw mills as well as companies like Amazon, CBRE, Gensler and Room and Board.
“We help truckers coordinate loads so they can actually move this material, and then we help sawmills source that material, track that material when they’re actually using it within their sawmill and then ultimately sell that material as well,” Christensen said.
