Boise Evergreen™, produced using MF resin, is the company’s new Premium Sustainable Particleboard™. It incorporates Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI) and Environmentally Preferable Product (EPP) certification and is made with 100 percent recycled or reclaimed fiber. It is moisture resistant and supports up to 5 LEED® credits.

Chris Castleman, technical director at the La Grande plant, traces the development of the product. “We tried using phenol formaldehyde resin first but the board’s machineability characteristics were poor.  And, from a production point of view, the PF resin required a longer cycle, giving us less production volume per shift. It takes a little longer to cure and though a little doesn’t seem like much, by the end of a shift it adds up.” In addition, Evergreen is made with mainly ponderosa pine fiber, which naturally produces a light-colored board. “PF resin darkened the panel color, presenting some issues with thin paper lamination appearance,” Castleman explains.

The company then tried MF resin, supplied by Hexion, and found it a much better alternative. The board not only meets Boise’s quality standards, it qualifies for LEED credits and is CARB Phase I compliant. “Evergreen  can also be supplied as Phase II compliant,” says Castleman, “but requires different process adjustments which affect production costs.”

“Resins with melamine are not new,” he notes. “They’ve been around for a long time. We put MF into production because of customer demand. Even though UF resin is inexpensive, if there’s a market out there for something else, we’ll respond to that market.”

Evergreen board is run on 5 ft. and 4 ft. caulless lines, the same ones used to make UF products. “No changeout in equipment was required,” says Castleman, “The runnability with MF resin is similar to UF, with comparable press cycle times.”  

The difference comes in with the cost. “The Evergreen board costs about 60 percent more to make than the UF board. The resin cost is about 40 percent more,” says Castleman. 

Steve Stoler,  Boise’s general sales manager for particleboard, says that Evergreen is “one of the top particleboards in the market and consistent with the Boise core business approach. It’s the most machineable particleboard on the market. Our customers understand the benefits of that, including less downtime and ease on tools.” 

“It’s a great product with good physical properties” adds Castleman. “The high moisture resistance was something we expected, an extra benefit from using the MF resin.”

Evergreen is being used mainly in government and office buildings where it scores LEED credits. “It’s being spec’ed all over the country for those types of projects,” says Stoler, “though the biggest markets are the west coast, northwest and midwest.”

Stoler predicts that “when the housing market comes back, green building will eventually cycle down into the housing end, but it will be mainly higher end housing.”  

Evergreen will be there to meet that demand.