Sunday, 01 December 2002
FSC-Certified Firewood at a Convenience Store Near You
Many homes in the New England area will be kept warm this coming winter thanks to the first FSC-certified firewood company, Ossipee Mountain Land Company. Their certified wood is kiln-dried, packaged in bundles and prepared for sale in such retail outlets as Shaw's Supermarkets, Cumberland Farms, A&P and Whole Foods Market.
Ossipee has been selling firewood for 15 years, but became certified in 2002 and expects to sell approximately 3,000 cords of their certified wood per year. The certified firewood is specially marked on the package, so customers know that they are buying FSC-certified wood. The President and Manager of Ossipee, Jeffery Coombs, explains that the wood is a low-grade product that would otherwise be used as pulpwood. “We remove the lower quality stems to redirect growth onto the higher quality trees," he said. The idea behind the packaging, he adds, is “to educate the public about certified wood."
Coombs has also recently become an FSC Resource Manager, responsible for some 15,000 acres of certified land in New Hampshire.