More than 1 million broken posts need to be replaced in Australian vineyards every year, but Wine Australia warns that the figure could be much, much higher, perhaps as high as 3.3 million, with the vast majority of posts stockpiled on site, sold or given away, or sent off to landfill.
“About 80 million timber posts are installed in vineyards across Australia, of which 78% are treated with CCA (Copper chrome arsenate) – and most of the other timber posts are treated with creosote,” according to Wine Australia, who revealed that cracked poles result in between 12,000 and 30,000 tonnes of wasted wood every year.
However, that could change with Wine Australia working to create alternative, low-emissions uses for end-of-life posts: “Our goal is to develop viable opportunities to divert CCA timber from landfill and create new, valuable products within regional communities,” they said, adding that data, regulatory barriers, reuse and recycling technologies and stewardship are amongst the most significant challenges.
Wine Australia is a partner of the Australian Timber Circularity Project, which has successfully mapped over 27 million CCA posts stockpiled across the country, including a high concentration in the wine-rich South Australian region.
“Examples include CCA-treated timber posts (which) can be reused as agricultural fence products,” according to Martin Strandgard, project member, who is now pushing for a “repost-style” reuse of broken posts.
“There is an NZ-based business that already does this—they collect the posts, reuse them, and sell them through hardware stores.” And there is no reason why this model could not work in South Australia—a region where five regions account for 60% of post-removals every year. “We can use the map to divide the resource by region, including Murray Bridge.”
- To learn more about the Australian Timber Circularity Project, including the role of CCA-treated timber in the circular economy, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.
