We all could be a little more green in our lifestyles, whether it’s through taking public transportation or cutting down the amount of electricity we use.
But did you know that your choices in the furniture you buy also have an environmental impact? There are some furniture material types that are more sustainable than others, and knowing which furniture building materials to look for is important if you’re hoping to reduce your impact on the environment.
Here are the four most eco-friendly furniture building materials to look for when shopping for new furniture for your home:
1. Reclaimed wood: Many sustainable furniture makers choose to build there furniture with reclaimed or recycled wood. These reclaimed furniture building materials can come from old furniture, houses, flawed wood or factory scraps that would otherwise go to a landfill.
2. Recyclable furniture building materials: Any piece of eco-friendly furniture should be able to be recycled once its time in your house is over. You should look for furniture that can be disassembled and sorted into recycling piles easily.
3. Leather: Leather furniture is a great way to be sustainable. Leather furniture stores make their furniture with by-products of the beef industry — so basically, the majority of leather furniture is created from furniture building materials that would otherwise go to waste.
4. Low-toxicity furniture: Furniture doesn’t just sit in your house and do nothing. Most furniture building materials do something called offgassing, or releasing substances into the air. Furniture building materials that are synthetic or manmade could be offgassing toxic substances into the air inside your house — and, as a result, into the environment. These volatile organic compounds have been linked to linked to birth defects, endocrine disruption and cancer — so definitely avoid them!
