ATLANTA – The International Woodworking Machinery & Furniture Supply Fair has partnered with WEIMA America, the Georgia World Congress Center, the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau  and GES for a new recycling project at IWF 2008.

According to a release from IWF, the fair and its partners on the Recycling Project have invested considerable time and resources making the first steps towards reducing their environmental footprint and becoming more green.

“IWF has over 1,300 exhibitors and a large number of them process wood products daily at our show and we wanted to make sure we reduced the wood waste at our 2008 show. To make a positive step to become more green it really required a qualified group of partners. As a group we knew this would require an investment of time and resources, but we knew the end results would be worth it,” said Patrick LaFramboise, president and CEO of IWF.

WEIMA America will be providing a WL15 hopper-fed shredder with both in-feed and discharge conveyors. This machine will be able to handle everything from pallets and crates to all types of wood scrap from demonstration machines. The benefit of the shredder is to reduce the size of bulky materials and the volume of waste that would be going into a landfill.

“We’re excited to be part of this project and it will be a great opportunity to use IWF as a model to show woodworkers from around the world how they can reduce waste and become more green,” stated Vikki Van Dam, inside sales and marketing manager for WEIMA America.

“When IWF and WEIMA America came to us about the Recycling Project, we jumped right in and said this is a great idea and we wanted to give our full support to the project,” said Mark Zimmerman general manager of the Georgia World Congress Center.

“Anything we can do to reduce waste and help IWF, in this case become greener, we are glad to do,” said Danny Harris, director, national accounts at GES.

“It’s a great thing to go green and Atlanta has many green initiatives currently and we we’re glad to support this project,” said Lauren Jarrell, director of communications for the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau.