Doing your part to help the environment is an important philosophy for many people these days, and there are a lot of ways people are doing that, from recycling plastics and reducing consumption of goods that cause excessive waste to reusing items, furniture, and even building materials—like reclaimed wood flooring in Phoenix.
The construction industry uses a lot of raw materials every year, including stone, marble, wood, steel, aluminum, copper, etc. This mining, gathering, and processing of resources causes a great strain on the environment, but there are ways people can help. By reusing materials from previous constructions, the cost of a new build or renovation can be greatly reduced, thus the impact of new material creation can be reduced. One of the easiest ways you can reduce the environmental impact on your next renovation is to use reclaimed wood flooring in Phoenix. Below are several ways that reclaimed wood use impacts the environment.
Decreasing the Demand of New Source Lumber
Almost every new home build is going to use lumber in some form, whether it is through the frame of the building, support beams, walls, and flooring. There are several spots where reclaimed wood can be used in a renovation or in the building of a new home. For instance, using reclaimed wood flooring in Phoenix helps reduce industry demand for new source lumber. The demand for new source lumber is high all year round, but if more people started using reclaimed wood, that demand would be reduced. Reduced demand for new source lumber helps the environment greatly and would lead to a curbing of deforestation across the world. While many lumber companies have a policy (or local laws) that require a new tree be planted for every tree cut down, not everyone follows these policies, and the amount of forests in the world have steadily declined in the last few centuries due to new source lumber demands.
Saving on Energy Costs from Suppliers
The processing of new source lumber has a huge energy demand across the world. Oil and fuel are used when initially cutting down trees, then fuel is used to transport these logs to a lumber mill (if a river is not available.) At the lumber mill a lot of electricity and fuel is used in order to strip logs and cut them down to the various sizes required by manufacturers and home builders. Transporting these processed boards to factories and construction sites also has to be taken into consideration. With the use of reclaimed wood flooring in Phoenix, or any other form of reclaimed wood use, all of those steps would not have to be taken, reducing energy usage greatly while also reducing pollution.
Saves the Lives of Animals
Using reclaimed wood flooring in Phoenix may not feel like a huge impact, but as more reclaimed wood is used, reductions in deforestations can start to happen. Deforestation causes the extinction of several species every year, and a lot of animals in general die from the loss of habitat.
Reduce Landfill Waste
Another big environmental impact from using reclaimed wood flooring in Phoenix, or any type of reclaimed wood, is the fact it isn’t ending up in landfills. While wood is biodegradable, it is often treated with chemicals to make it insect and rot resistant, so the more that type of wood can be reused, the better. Landfills take up precious space, and they negatively affect the environments around them, so the less we need to put into them, the better.
If you are looking for environmentally sustainable wood, especially for your flooring needs in your latest reno or woodworking project, contact Blackhawk Floors today for their selection of reclaimed wood flooring in Phoenix.