Illegal Baltic Birch Plywood Makes Its Way Into American Homes
Today, we would like to discuss the subject of ILLEGAL PLYWOOD being used here in the USA.
We suppose you might be thinking:
“What can be so ILLEGAL with plywood?”
As you can surmise, it’s much more serious than you can imagine!
It’s not a secret that many professionals in the industry (General Contractors, Cabinet Makers, Hardwood Flooring Contractors, etc.) love Russian Birch, because It’s claimed to be durable, strong, and visually appealing.
Furthermore, Russian Birch is the wood of choice for many carpenters, furniture makers, and manufacturers in the U.S.
Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of Birch Plywood is imported from Russia each year, some of it is manufactured into products and the rest is sold directly to consumers and retailers like Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon, and even Walmart.
However, these direct imports from Russia to the U.S. were thrown into upheaval soon after Russia’s invasion of war against Ukraine in February 2022.
Many countries, including the U.S., took measures by ceasing to import many products, including Birch and other timber, from Russia that might be tied to financing or prolonging the conflict.
However, did the U.S. really manage to stop Russian Birch Plywood from being Imported?
Unfortunately, the answer is “no”. This has been backed up by evidence from the Environmental Investigation Agency’s (EIA) recent deep dive into the Birch supply chain from May to August 2022, indicating that the U.S. failed to completely stop Russian Birch Plywood from being imported.
In addition, the EIA’s findings suggest the United States is also failing to routinely monitor imports under the “Lacey Act”.
Specifically, there is a mandatory requirement for ALL importers to declare the country where the wood was originally harvested. This ultimately would stop the flow of potentially illegal, conflict-tainted timber to continue being imported
The lack of control leads to uninformed Americans, buying imported Russian plywood, willy-nilly, to sponsor the economy of a terrorist state.
For comparison, the European Union took even stronger measures, banning ALL timber imports from Russia and from Russian origin, responding to evidence that the timber revenues benefit oligarchs which most likely is being used to finance the conflict.
This investigation has found that Russian timber, especially Birch, including plywood, has continued to find its way around U.S. tariffs and sanctions by being funneled through Vietnam. It’s not surprising that plywood imports from Vietnam have surged-jumping over 200% since March and April 2022.
It is true that Vietnam has been cooperating with Russia for a long time and is participating in fraudulent supplies of Russian Birch plywood to the USA.
Let’s examine why…
In 2020, Birch plywood accounted for more than 70% of the U.S.”s timber imports from Russia, which is valued at over $160 million. However, according to U.S. customs data, this represents only a portion of the Russian Birch products that U.S. customers have been consuming.
In fact, large quantities of Birch plywood have also been imported from countries like Vietnam and Indonesia. For instance, in 2020, over $205 million of Birch plywood was imported from Vietnam. According to the Decorative Hardwood Association, Russia is the major source of imports of Birch plywood to Vietnam.
As we mentioned above, U.S. consumers ARE continuing to purchase Birch plywood from major retailers, including Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon, plus many other companies, which are sitting at the tail-end of a muddled, complex supply chain.
Actually, many people probably do not realize that, according to EIA’s investigation, the majority of the Birch products are coming from Russia, then traveling across China and Vietnam before entering the U.S.
But why are people flatly refusing, even for a second, to think about the real origin of this, before buying it?
Well, first-off, the average homeowner is more interested in finding out the details of the scandalous Balenciaga advertising campaign, rather than asking where the plywood that’s in most engineered hardwood floors are made with, actually comes from.
Unfortunately, such is the nature of man, such that, when the time comes to use our brains to independently conduct an uncomplicated analysis, which uses hard facts that are right under our noses, we subconsciously refuse to do this! Science suggests that this is how our body controls us in order to keep our brain from overtaxing and thinking about 1001 things at the same time.
Well, today we are not talking about the work of our subconscious mind at all, so let’s move on!
To begin with, almost no Birch grows in Vietnam, because Birch, in particular, only grows in cold climates.
As you may or may not know, Russia is home to 20% of the world’s forests, including vast Birch forests, and is the world’s biggest supplier of birch. China, the world’s largest timber trader, is the main consumer, which has historically been the largest importer of Russian timber: Birch has consistently been one of the top traded goods between the two nations. In 2021, roughly one out of every four logs that China imported from Russia, were Birch logs.
Vietnam actually imports far more Birch, which is “peeled” into veneers and comes from China. In fact, Vietnam has become the second largest timber-manufacturing hub in Asia after China, supplying the U.S. with 31% of its timber product imports. With strong government support, even the Covid-19 pandemic could not slow-down Vietnam’s exports of wood products.
Americans Would Want To Know That They Are Buying Illegal Wood From Russia
As it turned out traders frequently leverage far-opaque supply chains to obscure illegal, unfair, and unethical sourcing of imported timber.
We are convinced that many buyers would NOT support illegal harvesting, ecological damage, tax evasion, corruption, and in the case of Russian Birch in particular – conflicted timber.
The UK-based NGO Earthsight has previously shown that Russia’s timber-trade enriches “timber barons” (*oligarchs in Putin’s inner circle) which is helping Russia finance its invasion of Ukraine.
Consumers want to know and deserve to know the origins of the products they are buying. Meanwhile, if you look into the details of the U.S. Lacey-Act, some amendments were particularly designed to shed light on this lie by obligating importers to list the wood species and country of harvest.
In summary, we are making the conclusion that the hidden path connecting Russian “blood” Birch to American consumers highlights the opaque timber supply chains and manufacturing hubs like Vietnam and China.
So, American consumers who are concerned about the war in Ukraine should suspend their birch purchases until sellers provide them with credible information about the product’s origins.
However, if you do not want to waste your time, energy, and nerves on investigations of this kind – please contact us (Olde Tyme Floor) as we can definitely help you make the right choices.
Additionally, we will not only tell you which product is worth buying, and, whose products are NOT to purchase, but we can also supply & perform the installation of your new hardwood flooring flawlessly!