The production processes of furniture industry generate significant amounts of wood waste, which has not always a correct destination. The potential for exploitation of these residues is significant, whether as secondary raw material, whether by its energy potential. The management of this waste is one of the challenges for the management and environmental performance of companies. This work used multivariate analysis with the extraction of key components, to analyze the load of each original variable and identify key variables that have similarities in relation to the waste generation. The variables of production considered was: quantity of raw materials consumed, number of employees, number of machines, energy consumption and water consumption. By linear regression, using the stepwise method, were obtained the equations to estimate the waste according to the original variables of production. With these results is possible to calculate the amount of waste generated by class of raw material for a particular company or municipality researched. The estimate of generation was applied to the furniture industries located on Serra Gaúcha / RS.
Waste management; wood waste; furniture industry; environmental management
