Dialogue with Régis Pommier, a passionate man

Régis Pommier

“Ingénieurie Mécanique et Conception IMC” department, Institute of mechanics and engineering I2M in Bordeaux

Thanks to our project “Far waste in the Landes Forest”, we were lucky to meet Régis Pommier from the I2M institute (Institute of mechanics and engineering, in Bordeaux). Régis Pommier is a really passionate man concerning the Landes forest and more generally concerning wood. He currently works on the recovery of wood through collage techniques and wood drying. During our meeting, Regis Pommier enlightened the sector’s challenges in the Landes forest.

The Landes forest, a real industry

During the exploitation of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) in the Landes forest, every piece of wood is utilized. A real industry was built on this exploitation where every wood component is used for specific purposes. Therefore, there are no “waste” strictly speaking in the Landes forest.

Different applications depending on the life-stage of the tree

The maritime pine is harvested all along its growth. Thinnings are led on young trees from 10 to 20 years-old. The resulting wood will be transformed into pulpwood and firewood. Pulpwood is used by the paper industry where it is converted into cellulose pulp. We can also manufacture particle boards from this pulpwood. The remaining wood is used as firewood to produce energy.

A 30 years-old tree is considered as an adult or mature tree. Its trunk base can be then utilized for “higher purpose” to produce furnitures and constructions. The wood of the higher trunk is considered as less qualitative as it contains more nodes. Therefore, it is more likely transformed to produce wooden pallets. The high branches are converted again into pulpwood and firewood.

A wood quality depending on soil

Unlike deciduous trees (trees with broad leaves), the wood of resinous trees is more qualitative and compact through a slow growth. Therefore, the quality of the wood decrease when the fertility of the soil increase. Pines that are harvested on fertile soils are usually quickly cut down in order to be transformed into wooden pallets and pulpwood.

The sawing step, a low yield step

The wood collected from the harvest of maritime pine is then routed to sawing workshops in order to produce wooden planks. This step generates a very low yield with a great quantity of by-products (more than 30% of the raw material). These by-products are currently recovered as pulpwood or firewood.

A future for the recovery of by-products

Although there is a real and optimized industry in the Landes forest, it is actually important to boost innovation in this field in order to enhance the recovery of generated by-products. One of the major issues would be to achieve to handle a huge quantity of pulpwood in a high potential recovery process.