Use

Manufacturing

In many areas fast-growing hybrid poplars are grown on plantations for pulpwood

Poplar is widely used for the manufacture of paper.

It is also sold as inexpensive hardwood timber, used for pallets and cheap plywood; more specialised uses include matches and the boxes in which camembert cheese is sold.

Almost the entire woodwork of the traditional houses of the people of Badakhshan, also known as Pamir in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Northern Areas of Pakistan is comprised of poplar wood.

Poplar wood is also widely used in the snowboard industry for the snowboard "core", because it has exceptional flexibility, and is sometimes used in the bodies of electric guitars and drums.

Poplar wood, particularly when seasoned, makes a good hearth for a bow drill.

Due to its high tannic acid content, the bark has been used in Europe for tanning leather.

It was also picked as the material for the bones of "Buster", the crash test dummy used in the TV show MythBusters, after some experiments revealed that it fractures under approximately the same loads as human bone.

Energy

There is interest in using poplar as an energy crop for biomass or biofuel, in energy forestry systems, particularly in light of its high energy in-energy out ratio, large carbon mitigation potential and fast growth.

In the United Kingdom poplar (as with fellow energy crop willow) is typically grown for two to five years (with single or multiple stems), then harvested and burned - the yield of some varieties can be as high as 12 oven dry tonnes every year

Art

Poplar was the most common wood used in Italy for panel paintings; the Mona Lisa and indeed most famous early renaissance Italian paintings are on poplar. The wood is generally white, often with a slightly yellowish cast.

Some stringed instruments are made with one-piece poplar backs; violas made in this fashion are said to have a particularly resonant tone.

Cleaning contaminated sites

Poplars may be used for Phytoremediation. Related research has taken place at the University of Washington.