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
Comments
Your pieces are so beautiful! I appreciate that there are companies like yours making old into new again, it just makes sense!
Looking for info about uses for discarded urban trees. POssibilities so far are furniture, flooring, cabinets, counter tops. Delaware Center for Horticulture and City of Wilmington DE are researching this project. What cities and non-profits are doing similar projects?
This was a very interesting article. But how exactly is buying reclaimed(green) furniture helping our environment?
Buying reclaimed wood furniture helps the environment in many ways. The main benefit of using reclaimed wood is that no trees need to be cut, milled, transported to market. Urban Woods uses locally sourced reclaimed wood that comes from old buildings that are close by. In many cases the reclaimed wood from these old buildings was originally cut about 100 years ago from old growth trees. During a trees life it absorbs carbon dioxide. The carbon that the tree absorbs is trapped in the wood and not released unless it is burned or left to rot in a landfill. By continuing to use the wood we are keeping the carbon locked in the wood and by not using new wood we are allowing a living tree to continue living and absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.
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