[dirtyid]

Most small residential buildings in NA are already using relatively climate friendly dimensional lumber so the question is, are large wooden building a solution for climate change. The answer looks like yes, but there are a lot of toxic pollutants involved in engineered wood products, the kind of large wood members needed in large scale construction. I haven't found much research into the subject, a lot of existing literature is from the industry. Partly because it might genuinely be the defacto future building material, partly because the market is ready since sand scarcity is going to be a problem for concrete in the future.

[brohee]

The point of CLT is that it contains only 1% of a not so bad adhesive (polyurethane) and 99% wood, vs e.g. MDF that contains 10% of a pretty bad adhesive...

[dirtyid]

In context climate change, it's more apt to compare effects of substituting concrete for CLT. The PUR / polyurethane adhesive is "no bad" in the sense that there's no toxic formaldehyde for people, but production of the adhesives still has heavy health and emissions risks - according to some Finish Building Science thesis I read a few years ago. As for MDF, since its is upcycled industrial wood residuals, it's going to be more economical as a byproduct of CLT popularity. Would probably be more wasteful to not use it. I'm a big believer in engineered wood, intuitively it seems like the way to go, there's just not much literature on it in terms of emission life cycle assessment in building science literature. Then again I haven't read up in a few years and interest in them have exploded outside of niche architecture and building circles.

[Bootwizard]

What about recycled plastic? I've seen parks use it well for durable bridges, benches, gazebos, etc. For some reason I haven't seen it used for homes and that confuses me. It seems like a generally durable and even weatherproof material.

[dirtyid]

Not for structural use, which engineered wood is good replacement for concrete. Mybe some exterior cladding applications where there's already a lot of plastic products, I know some exist with recycled plastic but they seem pretty niche. Performance requirements for habitable environments (insulation, moisture control, outgassing/toxcity in fires etc) is different from outdoor use. It's probably down to process cost and scale, and the regulation around construction is generally pretty conservative.