Beefing Up Sustainability By Using Salvaged Building Materials
Pressing issues such as global warming and rising energy costs has seen that there’s been a paradigm shift in recent years towards “green” thinking and practices. Living green and being eco-friendly is simply the art of living “lightly” on the Earth: impacting on the Earth as little as possible when seeking to fulfill our wants and needs. The process of building a home is one that consumes a number of resources and we have a choice as green citizens to use resources which will have no long term detrimental effect on the health of the planet, or indeed our own health. On this page we will look at how salvaged and sustainable building materials can be used to build green homes. Sustainability is one of the key aspects of green building practices. It is now possible to purchase building materials and furnishings made from sustainably harvested wood. In order to be absolutely certain that the materials you are purchasing have been sustainable harvested, you can check to see that they are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC are the only true 3rd party, non-biased rating agency on the world that certifies forests as being sustainable or not. This is important because there are a lot of manufactures who will say that their materials are sustainable certified but they can’t back it up with certification – a process known as “greenwashing.” Bamboo has become popular as a sustainable building material but it really does need to be checked for its hardness before proceeding with it for flooring. The best approach would be to talk to a green builder or hardwood flooring installer who has installed it before. Flooring isn’t the only area where you can use alternative building materials. You can purchase linoleum that has been produced from renewable materials like linseed oil, rosins, wood flour and jute or tiles that have been made from flax. There are also many companies who sell carpeting from natural wool fibers, recycled materials and natural fabrics. Another important aspect of sustainable building is that it uses non-toxics paints and finishes. The chief benefit of using such products is that they’re designed to reduce “offgassing”- or the emissions of toxins into the environment. These toxins are frequently referred to as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) which will cause outdoor pollution. Some companies such as AFM Safecoat will even go a step further and eliminate ingredients such as formaldehyde, ammonia, acetone and odor masking agents that cause indoor air pollution. On the same topic, sustainable builders are now increasingly choosing plywood that is not manufactured with formaldehyde. Of course, using salvaged building materials wherever possible is also going to contribute greatly to any given building’s green credentials. There are some cost impediments to using salvaged building materials – for instance, virgin timber is cheaper than salvaged timber because of the immense subsidies given to the virgin timber industry – but the environmental costs will be considerably cheaper. Re-use simply makes good sense: a recent study concluded that 30 percent of a two story apartment building was salvageable by volume which could go a long way to reducing the 136 million tons of construction and demolition waste generated by American homes and businesses each year.
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