With environmental awareness at a high, people are looking for ways to do their part in order to lessen the carbon footprint they leave behind. What role does our home furniture have in becoming more eco-friendly? A lot, it turns out.
Furniture, although static parts of our daily lives offering us comfort or a place to sleep, is made or in-part derived from natural materials. The most “eco-friendly” furniture of course is the kind that is already made, old, second-hand, or antique. Not to your taste? Then a few craftsman, even manufactuers are developing more concientious ways to make furniture, utilizing sustainable natural materials, fair-labor practices and non-toxic non-VOC paints.
Lifestyles have changed and smarter choices are being made every day. With advances in technology and a greater understanding of the environment and how it functions, eco-friendly products are created and even big industries and building codes are changing.
This is no different for the average Joe. With the availability of products such as eco-friendly clothing, green modular homes, smart cars and the like, people are starting buy smarter, if buying at all! Making your own furniture from local resources is one way to ensure it is authentically green.
Like eco-friendly clothing, green furniture use resources such as bamboo, sustainable timber and organic cottons to produce furniture en-masse, although with less strain to the environment.
To take it a step further, products made from wood, is made from trees that were planted specifically for the production of furniture and little or no pesticides are used during cultivation.
A wide range of products are available, from chairs and tables to beds, rugs and lighting. Designs are modern and sophisticated and buyers will find that almost all their needs can be satisfied by eco-friendly products.
A bamboo bench, an example of eco-friendly furniture, sits outside a hotel in Panama.
The advantages of eco-friendly furniture are big. To begin with, it poses no health risks. This is because only natural and organic resources is used, and these resources are cultivated with very little or no pesticides.
So when buying eco-friendly furniture, you can be sure that it contains no products that can be harmful to you. Another bonus in this is that because it is healthy for us, it is also healthy for the environment.
Furthermore, when buying eco-friendly wood furniture, the wood is taken from areas that are responsibly used. As soon as a tree is cut down, another one is planted to replace it. Pesticides and chemical use are little or none at all, and the environment is taken into consideration.
Another great resource is bamboo because it is a resource that is not renewable, but grows at a fast pace. Know that when it comes to eco friendly brands, even the production process is environmentally sound and safe.
Green brands of new furniture available today include Greenington, Shiner, EcoPod, Structured Green, Elemental Living, Kalon Studios, Eco Mod Collection and Rotoluxe. Likewise, the small enterprises led by artisans is another great way to source green furniture. Meaning, there are no excuses of too few suppliers and too big of a demand. -Annabel Schoeman