Wood Waste Valuation of Selected Timber Species in Iloabuchi Sawmill, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Wood waste disposal without proper management is an emerging environmental issue regardless the continuous processing sawing activities. Improvement of policies and provision of funding for waste management lack jurisdiction. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate wood waste of selected timber species in Iloabuchi Sawmill in Port Harcourt using purposive sampling technique. Measurements were carried out before and after log conversion to estimate the volume of sawn timber and wood residues generated from the selected sawmills. The outcome revealed highest lumber recovered 75.50% while the least 75.18%. Sawdust, Slab and total waste volume had the highest with 0.0362m3, 0.0784 m3 and 0.1145m3. While the least was recorded 0.0357 m3 for sawdust, 0.0759 m3 slabs and 0.1137 m3 total waste volume. This finding showed no significant difference in the percentage of the lumber recovered in the five sections, while there is significant difference between volume of slab and sawdust irrespective of the sections and species sampled. It is believed that the large quantity of sawmill wastes that are being generated poses a multitude of problematic factors. Therefore, this study recommends that proper disposal methods should be applied to avoid the contamination of Iloabuchi open space.