By: Mitchell Kamps
The vast increase in lumber cost and the lack of availability of Midwest hardwoods and softwoods is affecting all businesses that rely on wood as a supply element for its products. This includes Kamps as well. As pallet makers we need a continuous supply of wood to serve our clients’ shipping needs, and any interruption in supply makes it more difficult to do so. Therefore we need to be proactive and future thinking about accessing other potential sources of wood during these periods of scarcity.
As such, we at Kamps are turning our eye toward the many pallets that are scattered discarded or unused throughout our cities, seeing them as lumber to be reclaimed so that, after dismantling, we can cut it to size and remanufacture a different pallet. We are calling it “harvesting the urban forest.”
Wood reclamation has become rather a trend lately. Craftsmen have been harvesting wood for material, and homeowners taken with the rustic look have repurposed barn wood for floors and beams. The green movement has also heavily promoted the idea of repurposing older materials for new uses. Kamps believes that there are immense growth opportunities for us in this area. Our operations team will be putting an added emphasis on acquiring recycled lumber from urban sources.
