Cambium is building an AI that helps turn waste wood into usable lumber

It’s a scene that plays out in cities and suburbs across America: A tree gets cut down, and instead of being milled into lumber, the whole thing gets shredded. There are a range of reasons why, none of which have sat well with Ben Christensen. Christensen grew up in New Mexico among the state’s towering pines, and if that wasn’t enough to instill a healthy respect for trees, his family is steeped in timber, including his father who is a carpenter and woodworker. In nearly every case, the biggest reason that wood gets wasted is coordination, Christensen said. “If you’re a tree care service, you’re incentivized to get to your next booking,” he told TechCrunch. “If you have to drive out of your way to drop off logs somewhere that would reuse them, it’s not going to work.” Christensen, along with Marisa Repka and Theo Hooker, sensed opportunity in the wasted wood, founding Cambium. The startup reuses wood that would otherwise be sent to the chipper or the burn pile, and it does that mos ... Read full article.