Here in the United States, wood is everywhere we look. Our homes are made from the stuff and our floors covered with it. Specialty wood products about and it would be hard to go through even just one day without using any type of wood product at all. Many prospective home owners (more than half of them, as a matter of fact) would actually even pay more for any home that incorporated elements of hardwood flooring throughout, and wood itself contributes an important design factor to many parts of the home.
And wood can be found outside of the home as well, from round wood table tops in wood restaurant tables to wood siding in doctor’s offices. Wood is a necessary part of many of our structures. Without the use of wood, the world would be likely to look like a very different place indeed.
But the use of wood is not always ideal, at least not in the ways that we use it. While up to 30% of the entirety of our planet is actually currently covered by forests, this is something that is unfortunate likely to change and dwindle if we continue to consume wood at the rate that we have been. Deforestation is a real problem, and certainly not a simple one to self. After all, so many things contribute to deforestation on a larger scale. But tackling one problem at a time can help to begin to make a difference, even if it is a relatively small one in the grand scheme of things.
For starters, we can plant more trees. Primarily, though, wood products scubas round wood table tops or rustic wood siding will be made from hardwood, which throws a wrench of sorts into this plan. While it is still important to plant new trees where we are able to, planting trees is simply not enough to combat deforestation. This is due to the fact that hardwood trees typically take up to 60 years to become fully matured and typically will not take any less than forty or, in some cases, 20. This means that even the fastest growing of hardwood trees are not likely to grow fast enough to keep up with the rate at which they are being cut down.
Reducing wood waste is another way that we can save trees and – hopefully – take some real steps in the direction of saving our planet. After all, it’s been estimated that up to 30% of all of the waste that is generated at a construction site is wood waste alone, at least for the typical construction site found here in the United States. Taking steps to reduce this waste through more efficient methods of building is a great way that waste can be cut down on considerably. In many ways, modular methods of construction provide one great example of how this can be done.
But wood can also be recycled and in fact more than two and a half million tons of wood pallets were recycled in the year of 2015 alone, and number that has only likely grown in the years that have followed it. This wood, among other wood waste products, can be repurposed as reclaimed wood. Reclaimed wood is a great way to incorporate wood into your home (such as in the case of round wood table tops) without damaging our environment or our forests any further, something that should always be avoided if at all possible.
Fortunately, reclaimed wood can be used for just about anything that new wood can be, such as in the case of round wood table tops. In fact, round wood table tops can be even more appealing when they are made from reclaimed wood, and round wood table tops are far from the only product that can benefit from being made from reclaimed wood instead of new wood. Aside from round wood table tops, reclaimed wood can be used for products like wood paneling and other types of environmentally friendly tables. In many ways, reclaimed wood is presenting us with the future of wood as a whole, something that we can use to promote sustainability.
