After a warning that palm-cored plywood must be identified to customers, traders say the material should be limited to specific, low-tech applications pending further testing. But there are still fears it could be used structurally.
Nick Boulton, Timber Trade Federation head of technical and trade policy, recently told TTF members that palm plywood must be sold as such. This followed reports that it was being marketed as an all-wood product.
Mr Boulton said that EU standard EN313-2 reserved the term plywood for “multi-veneer panels made solely of wood”. He added that palm had not been tested to European Standards and “claims of suitability of any sheet material incorporating it for structural or exterior use” should be treated with caution.
International Plywood managing director Ian Attwood said it had taken a 100m³ palm ply sample to evaluate.
“It doesn’t look that bad,” he said. “And the coconut palm variety, as opposed to oil palm, seems to make sense environmentally. The material we saw in Malaysia is clearly plentifully available and could help us make better use of timber.”
Provided it was labelled clearly, he felt palm plywood “could do a job” in products like hoarding.
Mike Harrod of PT Agencies said that in the Far East palm panel products were used in interior applications and formwork and agreed that it could ultimately find a place in the European market. But, without better policing it would be mis-specified for load-bearing applications.
He said that, according to TRADA, palm isn’t a [CE mark listed] wood species so the glue bond in palm ply can’t currently even be tested to EN314 for structural purposes.
“But this trade still has an endemic passion for something cheap, so there’s a risk that, even if it’s marked non-structural on the invoice, once it gets out into the market it will find its way into structural uses.”
