John Park of the Wood Bureau writes:
I was speaking with Guy Edmundson of TIMBERWeb yesterday and happened to comment on the poor quality of the fencing material – wood – supplied to my next-door neighbour. The posts are now more akin to bananas with alternate posts bending in opposite directions!
Down at the local waste recycling centre, in the wood bin that is now provided, you can always see fence panels going to that valuable use for wood – recycling. I’m sure the previous owners would have preferred them to perform as fence panels a little longer unless they have succumbed to the power of TV and are remodelling their gardens – hopefully with a bit of timber decking.
I commented to Guy that if there were a plastic alternative for fence panels consumers would flock to it in droves as they have done with plastic windows.
Imagine my amazement when today, I open Building magazine and discover a ‘PVCu fencing system’. The system uses recycled packaging and recovered PVCu to produce fence posts and gravel boards weighing only 9% of concrete alternatives – note no reference to wood. It also advises that the manufacturer, Polyfence, is to launch a complete fencing range in the near future. Note particularly ‘recycled’ and ‘recovered’ – real buzzwords in the growing awareness of ‘post-consumer’ waste!
When I replaced my own garden fence last year I used treated timber posts. Thankfully, mine are still straight! When I asked the supplier how long the posts would last in ground contact he replied ‘A couple of years’. ‘But they are treated,’ I said. ‘Oh, you can’t believe all that’ he replied! Now the real work starts!
