Kottayam-based Malankara Rubber & Produce Co Ltd, in the rubber business since 1910, floated a wholly-owned subsidiary Malankara Wood Limited (MWL) to produce chemically-treated and kiln-dried rubberwood as a `sustainable alternative' to fast depleting teak and other tropical timbers.

The same rubberwood when treated properly assumes a bright yellow to pale cream texture, good machining qualities and chemical compositions similar to hardwood.

MWL director JK Thomas, during his recent tour of European countries as a CAPEXIL delegate, found great export potential for chemically treated rubberwood because of its eco-friendly properties. Subsequently, he made `Save Rain Forest' as the company's motto.

With a sudden surge in demand for rubberwood in the domestic market too, consequent to legislations preventing the exploitation of timber in forests, MWLlaunched an aggressive countrywide marketing drive, beginning Gujarat.

According to MWL marketing manager CM Jog, the company is now appointing a network of dealers in major cities. With a forest cover of less than 10 per cent and situated away from tropical forests, the company has strategically chosen Gujarat as a thrust area where timber is costlier than other states.

MWL was registered in January 1995 with an authorised capital of Rs 1 crore and paid-up capital of Rs 80 lakhs, which were subsequently raised to Rs 3 crore and Rs 2.80 crore respectively. The promoters set up a modern factory at Channanikkad in Kerala on a 5.5 acre plot for treating, drying and processing rubberwood, procured from its own and nearby plantations.

The plant went into commercial production of rough, sawn and four-sided planes and planks in various pre-cut sizes -- for furniture, railings, staircase, assorted toys, gifts and household articles -- in 1997-98.

It also has plans to shortly go for manufacturing boards of upto 8 ft by 4 ft size for table tops, flooring, ceiling, paneling, cabinets, door and window frames by joining planks in glue lamination press. However, it is not recommended for exterior applications. The rubber trees are being planted worldwide for the production of natural rubber for more than a century in tropical rain forests. The wood from the plantation, known as rubberwood, parawood or heveawood (from Latin Hevea brasiliensis), could be recycled faster than other trees grown for timber. While the rubber plantations are cleared every 30-35 years and prepared for replanting, other timber trees take 80 to 100 years to grow ful size.

According to modest estimates, about 1 millioon cubic metres of rubberwood logs are available every year, equivalent to tropical timber grown in an area of over 1 million hect of forest. Intercropping in rubber plantation is also common, which indirectly contributes to the stabilisation of degraded water catchment areas and degraded forests, reducing the pressure on tropicalforests.

Ironically, treated rubberwood is finding greater use in developed countries rather than in tropical countries. The USA is the largest outlet for rubberwood products, equivalent to 92,000 cu.m. of lumber, followed by Japan and European countries.

(The adjoining chart-A shows the major importers of rubberwood with percentage of the total world imports)

Finished rubberwood is comparable to teakwood in several respects and nearer to it in other.

Quoting proceedings of Kualalumpur Conference in Sepetember 1993, Jog said, working quality index of Indian rubberwood is 130 (compared to teak's 100) and finish adaptibility 94 per cent. Yet, it is cheaper tha several hardwood timber.

While rubberwood's compression perpendicular to the grains is just the same as teakwood's 101 kg/cm2, its permissible stress along the grains is 126 kg/cm2 as against teakwood's 153 kg/cm2. And, rubberwood's specific gravity of 0.557 is quite comparable to teakwood's 0.607.

Other parameter of rubberwood vis-a-visteakwood (in percentage) are: weight or heaviness 93, shear strength 92, shock resisting ability and splitting coefficient 75 each, surface hardness 74, strength as a beam 62, stiffness as a beam 77 and stiffness as a post 52.