Making your Garden Furniture Green
Being green is the trend these days. Everything from your appliances to your car should be as eco-friendly as possible. Less CO2 emissions, the better. Even cellphones have joined the greening bandwagon with solar powered charging and recyclable plastics on the body. For most homes, even the furniture we use can be green. Less use of wood furniture is more eco-friendly because the home consumes less of wood processed from felled trees that deplete our forests. That applies to outdoor furniture as well.
Green Materials
During the pre-green days, the use of wrought iron is already among the most common and preferred materials for outdoor furniture. You see them used for thousands of years not just as outdoor furnishings but in building homes and palaces. Just about all mansion entrance gates are made of wrought iron bars as well has border fences. Window grills also use them. And they remain viable outdoor furniture materials that now form part of the greening initiative.
Iron allows some of the most elegant open door furnishing because they can be twisted and molded to create elegant Victorian look and feel. They withstand the elements and are impervious to extremes of weathers. The only problem is they rust and corrode. But that’s easily overcome if painted over or chemically treated for weatherproofing.
Other green materials include “plastic lumber” which is recycled plastic from discarded yoghurt and ice cream containers and made to look like wood. They have all the qualities of plastic but don’t look as plasticky. Wood plastic products are similar except that wood fiber is mixed into the recycling processes to give them a more natural look and feel.
If you prefer real wood furniture, there are several options that have been certified by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) which oversees the sources of wood products to ensure they come only from forests or tree plantations that are sustainable. You’d know them by the FSC label on the wood furniture you are buying. And among real wood species that are sustainable, the pine is the most commonly preferred for outdoor furniture.
There’s just one caveat for using wood. Most wood require chemical treatment to prevent rotting and some of these chemicals contain pesticides which are known to harm the environment along with those who will use them. Many have started to use low-toxicity chemicals for this purpose but be sure to check what they are. The less chemicals, the healthier the furniture is for you and the environment.
