Eco Friendly Furniture for Earth Day – Made in Los Angeles
How reclaimed wood furniture helps save our Environment!
It is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and time to renew our commitment to the environment we live in, our home, and our earth.
Deforestation continues to be a problem all over the world. Although the rate of deforestation has slowed in the last 10 years it still occurs at the alarming rate of nearly 214,000 acres per day with illegal logging representing the majority of all logging activity in forests throughout Asia, South America, Central Africa and the Baltic states.
The use of reclaimed wood not only reduces the need to cut down trees but it also keeps waste wood out of land fills and ultimately keeps the carbon dioxide inside of the intact wood. Live trees absorb Carbon dioxide and release Oxygen through photosynthesis. When wood decomposes in a landfill or is burned, it releases the carbon dioxide that it has assimilated, thus negating the carbon absorbing benefit it has performed over its lifetime.
The USA imported over $20 billion of furniture in 2009. Imports mean pollution and unregulated wood sources. A single ocean freighter idling in the harbor expels the same amount of toxic emissions as 350,000 automobiles.
Buying local or domestic products reduces the amount of fossil fuels required for the transportation of products from other parts of the country or the world, thereby reducing your “Carbon Footprint” and reducing the net impact on Global Warming. Buying local or domestic reduces consumption of valuable natural resources.
Reclaimed wood furniture from Urban Woods supports the US Green Building Council’s LEED credits in categories such as Resource and Reuse, Local Extraction, Local Production, And Indoor Air Quality.
Take action today to help improve the environment.
www.environmentaldefensefund.org
www.earthday.org
www.nrdc.org
www.usgbc.org
Beyond Sustainable in Las Vegas
Urban Woods is bringing the newest “Beyond Sustainable” furniture designs to the World Market Center in Las Vegas February 1st 2010. Check out the action in Building “B” – second floor.
Urban Woods at Reclaim Home (Green Festival 2009)
Reclaim Home in Menlo Park, CA is a friend of Urban Woods and an eco-friendly store that is inspired by a desire for green home products to be more accessible and an enthusiasm about all the incredible choices available these days in everything from eco-friendly furniture to flooring.
According to Reclaim Home’s owner, Bridget Bradley, “Our goal is to find products that you instantly fall in love with because of their style, comfort, and usability. The fact that they are also eco-friendly will be an added bonus.
Some of the items in our store are made of recycled materials, others are certified organic, and others are made with sustainable materials that won’t offgas dangerous chemicals in your home. While it is not possible in every case, we give preference to products made in California to help reduce carbon emissions resulting from shipping materials over long distances.”
Reclaim Home will be exhibiting their wares at the Green Festival in San Francisco on November 13-25 at the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center. Go see their Organic Mattresses by Savvy Rest and Sustainable Beds by Urban Woods.
Las Vegas World Market – Living Green Pavilion – September 14-17, 2009
Urban Woods is showing it’s newest Sustainable Furniture lines in the “Living Green Pavilion” at the Las Vegas World Market.
Living Green Pavilion
The Living Green Pavilion is a perfect environment for furniture manufacturers to showcase their new lines of sustainably made designs.
Since it’s inception, The Living Green Pavilion has been one of the more popular destinations at Las Vegas Market. This year, it continues to grow as the home furnishings industry’s largest space dedicated exclusively to ec0-friendly products.
At this market, the Sustainable Furnishings Council (SFC), will present a series of seminars dedicated to educating retailer and manufacturers about sustainability. The Brave New World Environmental Leadership Series offers the most comprehensive lineup of any market on sustainability education and events. There are nine events. Eight are free. And you’ll find that all seminars take place conveniently in WMC Building B, 2nd Floor Living Green Pavilion.
Urban Woods is located in WMC Building B, 2nd Floor Living Green Pavilion, B-200
The Newset Eco friendly Furniture is a Hybrid
What do you get when you cross a Wilcox with a Trousdale? a Wildale!
A perfect blend of rustic and refined reclaimed wood blended together to create a unique new collection.
The creative minds at Rum Runner Home came up with the Hybrid furniture design this summer and feature many combinations on their floor in the Hamptons.
The newest Urban Woods, eco friendly, hybrid collection has also just arrived at SC-41 in Soquel, CA.
Custom Made EcoFriendly Furniture by Urban Woods
More and more designers and retailers are choosing to make their custom furniture from reclaimed wood with the eco-friendly manufacturing processes available from Urban Woods.
Retailers and designer agree that the peace of mind and quick turn around time of our sustainable, domestic production beats their former sources over seas. Americans are starting to request “made in the USA” again for their household purchases and the fact that they can get exactly the dimensions and finishes they need in a relatively quick time period is a big selling point.
All pieces at Urban Woods are made of reclaimed wood and finished with water based stains and low VOC finishes.
Get what you need at www.urbanwoods.net
Reclaimed Wood Furniture Made in Los Angeles
reclaimed wood furniture
- Reclaimed Douglas Fir at Urban Woods
The term “reclaimed wood” may conjur many different images. Some might imagine sunken logs that have been rescued from Amazonian river bottoms, or old barn siding from a dilapidated Southern plantation, or a peasants home razed in the third world because the value of the ancient timber is more vauable than the shelter it provides. All of these woods are reclaimed by some one, some where for some purpose and by some different method.
When it comes to sustainability and the making of sustainable furnishings one must consider the degree of sustainability of the ingredients. Is it constructed from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) wood (the FSC promotes responsible management of the worlds forests), Bamboo (actually a rapidly growing grass) or the most sustainable of materials, Reclaimed Wood from local sources?
Urban Woods is always striving to create a more sustainable product. In fact our products are beyond sustainable. By eliminating waste wood from landfills where they are left to decompose and release carbon into the atmosphere, reclaimed wood is “rescued” and repurposed for a second life.
See the full range of furniture made in Los Angeles from reclaimed wood and inquire about custom furniture options made by Urban Woods.
Kirei Board…Beautiful
Kirei Board panels make up the doors of this custom credenza from Rum Runner Home in East Hampton, New York.
Kirei Board is a beautiful, sustainable creation manufactured from reclaimed agricultural fiber from the Sorghum plant grown around the world for food. The stalks of this plant are usually burned or thrown into landfills after harvest. The stalks left over after harvest are heat-pressed with a non-toxic adhesive to form lightweight, strong, unique Kirei Board. By using them in the production of Kirei Board this material is removed from the waste stream, reducing landfill need and air pollution, while giving rural farmers a new source of revenue from a previously unused waste material.
Kirei Board is used throughout the Urban Woods furniture collections and utilized in many custom applications by Urban Woods. The Trousdale Collection features Kirei Board accents and panels together with reclaimed Douglas Fir creating a perfect blend of sustainable materials.
Check out the “friends” link on our home page to see Kirei Board used in unique ways.
Norway gives Billion Dollars to protect Amazon Rain Forest
Norway will give Brazil US$1 billion to preserve the Amazon rain forest, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday, as long as Latin America’s largest nation keeps trying to stop deforestation.The Amazon loses the equivalent of one-and-a-half football fields of forest every minute to logging, ranching and farming, the Brazilian environmental group Imazon has estimated. READ WHOLE ARTICLE HERE***
Beijing LEEDS the way to Sustainability
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presents the LEED Gold Award to Chen Zhili, head of the Beijing Olympic Village. (Photo courtesy BOGOC) |
The Beijing Olympic Village received a LEED gold award from the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, certifies that buildings have met a set of criteria for sustainability and energy efficiency.The LEED gold award was presented to Chen Zhili, head of the Beijing Olympic Village, on Wednesday by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Chen said the presentation affirmed the cooperation between China and the United States in clean energy technology for Olympic Games.
More than 16,800 athletes, coaches and officials of national teams are living in the residential section of the village – in 22 six-story buildings and 20 nine-story buildings that were constructed using environmentally-friendly paint and other materials.
The Beijing Olympic Village uses solar cells and geothermal heat pumps to supply energy to the buildings. The buildings feature solar heat, solar hot water, solar thermoelectric cogeneration, and intelligent control devices. They consume just 1/30th of the energy consumed by conventional buildings, according to the contractor, Guoao Investment Company.
Through a heat exchange system, the Village is projected to draw 7.89 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy from the Sun during the Olympics and slightly less in the years after the Games are finished and the buildings are used to house other residents.
The system taps energy from Qinghe sewage treatment plant and upgrades it through heat pump devices for winter heating and summer cooling. The technology can save energy by over 40 percent compared with ordinary air-conditioning systems.
In the Village, solar energy collecting tubes have been installed on rooftop gardens. The system can meet hot water demands of 16,000 users during the Games and some 2, 000 households after the Games. The project can save 5 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year,
The wastewater in the Village is being recycled and the 200 tons of water recycled daily is used for landscape watering in the Village.
