Wood is a popular material, there is no doubt about it. From flooring to wood paneling to restaurant table tops, wood is used in many places all throughout our lives. However, wood and the use of it can be incredibly detrimental to our environment as well. After all, trees provide us – and all other mammals – with oxygen, and provide shelter and a natural habitat for many different animals and life forms all throughout the world. At the current date, up to thirty percent of our entire world is make up of forests and jungles and the like.
However, that could all too easily change. Deforestation is a real problem, and a growing one, and wood is a commodity that is highly popular not only here in the United States, but in many other places all around the world as well. And much of the wood that we use ends up being wasted, as can be seen at the typical construction site at which traditional methods of construction (not modular construction, to put it more clearly) have been pursued.
At such a site, wood is likely to make up the biggest waste product. Actually, up to thirty percent of all waste from a construction site will be wood and wood alone, and much of this wood ends up in landfills. So not only are we cutting down a great deal of trees from all around the world each and every day, but we are also not utilizing all the wood that we have cut down to the best of our abilities.
Some people might say that it is as easy as planting new trees. Unfortunately, this is far from the case, though the planting of new life is always a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that hardwood trees simply don’t grow back all that quickly. In fact, it is not uncommon for a hardwood tree to not mature for as many as sixty years. And hardwood trees rarely – if ever – mature before they reach forty years of age.
This means that the answer lies in recycling. Recycling wood and then reclaiming it for the use of other wood products has been hugely successful, and the year of 2015 alone saw as many as two and a half million tons of wood pallets alone recycled, let alone other types of wood. In this way, we can not only reduce the amount of waste that we are creating, but we can make an effort to halt deforestation as well.
And reclaimed wood can be put to many uses. The aforementioned restaurant table tops can be one use for reclaimed wood. After all, wood restaurant table tops are very popular throughout the restaurant industry, as such restaurant table tops convey elegance as well as coziness. Simply switching to reclaimed wood restaurant table tops is a small change that can end up having a relatively large impact, especially if all restaurants using wood restaurant table tops switch instead to reclaimed wood restaurant table tops when it comes time to get new ones.
Reclaimed wood can also be used for home construction, such as in reclaimed wood siding. As the rustic look is very in right now, real reclaimed wood can be a great way to make that work in your own living space – especially if you mix a number of different types of reclaimed wood at that, something that will help to boost the authenticity of your design scheme. Of course, the elements of furniture also matter when coming up with a decor idea, and the use of reclaimed wood can be used for your furniture as well, even just as an accent piece or as a relatively small component.
Wood is a valuable commodity, from wood restaurant tables to wood floors to wood furniture like bookcases and tables and chairs. However, using reclaimed wood is likely to be far better for the environment overall as well as for the animals that live in the forests around the world.