Eco-Friendly Home - Materials

Sustainable Decor

This article provides interior design tips to improve your home's environmental sustainability. To start with, we leave some suggestions for the materials that you should focus on.

Select eco-friendly materials for furniture, floors and rugs

When people normally think "green", they don't necessarily reflect on the decor in your home. Instead, they consider installing solar panels, to conserve water or reduce electricity usage. All of these factors are important for a sustainable lifestyle, but other decor elements also play an important role in creating a healthier planet. Look for furniture, floor coverings and architectural design elements that use these renewable materials:

Reclaimed Wood – Barn wood or weathered wood for green building

Timber wood furniture cut from living trees, so it's not a sustainable choice on first use. However, reclaimed wood recycles the old material, giving it a new ecological life. Wooden cornices, rocking chairs and coffee tables are excellent solutions. It is also an excellent flooring option, especially in a rustic home.

Bamboo – Versatile grass with high strength-to-weight ratio

This material grown in tropical regions is very similar to wood, but it is a much more sustainable option. Bamboo is more like grass than trees. It is also one of the fastest growing plants in the world, allowing it to be used within four years of planting compared to the 60-70 years required by most hardwoods. It also requires very few pesticides or fertilizers, to make it even more ecologically attractive.

Recycled Metal - Scrap Reduces Source and Saves Energy

The shine of a recycled aluminum chair not only creates an industrial design in your home, but this material is also a more sustainable option. Furniture made from recycled metal and plastic has less processing and fewer features than furniture made from non-renewable materials. Furthermore, metal can be recycled repeatedly without degrading its properties.

Bio-Glass – Biodegradable substance for a variety of applications

You may be wary of sitting in a bio-glass lumberjack, but it's an exceptional ecological alternative, it can be applied to decorative items like bathroom sinks, countertops and floors.

Cork - sustainability and recyclability

Unlike the spongy initial impression this material makes, cork floors have a hard wood feel. They are an interesting sustainable option because the extraction of cork does not harm the trees – only the bark is harvested. Also, cork can be easily reused. In fact, some floors made from this material are made entirely from recycled wine corks.

Recycled Plastic – Reusing waste plastic reduces water pollution

Os tapetes internos e externos podem ser feitos de plástico reciclado - dando nova vida ao material não biodegradável. Uma forma popular de plástico reciclado é o polietileno de alta densidade.