Sustainable Wood: Why Its the Eco Friendly Choice for Furniture

Why Sustainable Wood is the best Eco Friendly Resource For Furniture?

We live in a world where most people want to do the right thing and to protect our environment. It’s the only way to ensure our world for future generations. Future proofing is a vital part of the quest for more sustainable modern life styles. This article is about how using sustainable wood can help.

It’s not enough to recycle bottles, cans and paper at home and avoid plastic bags when shopping. There’s a pressing need for a whole new 360 degree way of thinking! We must also extend sustainability into how we design products for the home and workplace. If we’re serious about saving the planet that must become prevalent in consumers minds. That’s not just ‘Millennials’ but also older generations who need to wake up and safeguard their grandchildren’s future.

We need to focus on how we choose what we buy. From the cars we drive, the packaging we allow, right through to the furniture we decide to purchase. Everything has an impact and adds to the ripple out effect.

The future of furniture is in an interesting case in point. We tend to forget that a lot of household furniture harms the environment and contributes to global warming. People buy plastic chairs and tables because they’re cheaper than other materials. We can afford to buy dozens of them – especially for large gatherings. But plastic is a soft material that isn’t durable and becomes brittle. This results in much of it ending up in landfill sites, or worse tossed on a bonfire! That is unless you’re creative and make them last longer like the one below.

What are the better ways to furnish your home and garden?

Look for quality furniture which doesn’t harm the environment. Invest in strong, robust and lifelong furniture items made from durable materials like metal and sustainable UK wood. Look for companies like Ironfire that use as few Volatile Organic Compounds as possible (if any at all). Not sure about what VOCs are and why you need to know about them? There’s lots of info here.

Ironfire is a firm in Wiltshire embracing design and production of sustainable, responsible all British furniture.

Beautiful but affordable furniture, built to last and with easy exchange of parts and maintenance being their philosophy!

Ironfire furniture uses galvanised steel that can last a lifetime, and sustainable UK sourced timber. Their ambition is to make you furniture your family will be fighting over long after you’ve gone! https://www.iron-fire.co.uk

Wood is the most natural renewable material!

According to the British Woodworking Group, more than 90% of wood used in the UK is grown in Europe. That’s much better than many other materials (Just to be smug, Ironfire only uses UK grown wood).

Making sure that you source materials as close to the point of production as possible is an important factor. The shorter the journey the lower the carbon impact. Many retailers still scour the world for cheap imports, creating enormous carbon footprints as they ship them round the globe!

People believe that chopping down wood is doing a lot of harm. Actually, it’s probably the most eco-friendly furniture material. Growing, trees absorb harmful CO2 and create oxygen, meaning wood is carbon neutral.

As older trees get felled new ones are then planted. Thankfully, trees don’t take culling as personally as we would!

Does Wooden furniture lasts for a very long time

Wood is a tough material. Its cell structure gives it huge strength and versatility. With proper maintenance wood can last a lifetime and requires little looking after. That’s one reason young couples carve their initials onto trees and memorial benches. It lasts and lets future generations know you were there!

So why shouldn’t your furniture do the same thing?

Due to the long life of wood, products made with it are much better for our planet. Of course, the older a wooden table gets, the more patina, character and rustic charm it develops.

Is Wood ideal for recycling?

Wood is also readily re-cycleable and re-useable. So, fewer trees need to be felled as re-purposing means demand for fresh wood is lower. This allows new planted trees plenty of time to grow. Woods carbon footprint is neutral and further reduced due to repurposing wood as well. In fact, less wood ends up in landfills than other materials.

Ironfire has re-purposing in its DNA as we rework our wooden tops for you, whenever your taste changes. So, you keep all the robust, durable galvanized metal components as well as the original wood, but in a new format.

Wood waste is completely biodegradable

The use of wood in furniture gives very little waste. Sawdust and off cuts are a useful for Chipboard or heating a workshop. Any waste wood that does get discarded after a while completely decomposes.

(Ironfire also offer Firepits to help you get the most out of disposing of your offcuts and foraged wood!)

Wood and other organic materials also sustain you!

Many of us spend much of our time indoors, either working hard or binge-watching Netflix. Wooden furniture helps provide a natural antidote to being so out of sync with the natural world

Research in Norway, Japan, Canada, Finland and Austria has however proven that using natural wood has a positive effect on one’s well-being.

“Wooden surfaces make a room feel warmer and cosier and they also have a calming effect. Wood beats all other normal surface materials.”

We can’t all maximise the natural calming of living in a log house! But the following link here again shows what a big effect living with sustainable wood has!

Wood you believe it?

This might all sound a bit out there, but my father had a belief that makes a strange sort of sense to me! Commenting about why many dream of keeping chickens, he said its because through history we were mostly all small holders. Over time this somehow became bound up in our collective conscious. So that means it feels natural and happy to have chooks pecking around your home!

That’s another possible reason why it is so important to us all to be in tune with the natural world. Sustainable wood furniture that brings out the organic grain, patterns and fibres of wood can really help you relax.

My Dad’s ideas have also affected the way we make Ironfire! In fact, we fit as much sustainable design into our pieces as possible. Whilst the use of natural, renewable UK materials is key to us. it’s just one of the 7 better way we do things.

We only supply direct this ensures lots of customers choice, lower delivery miles, great service and direct pricing.

I always knew that wood was versatile. Writing this blog has made me realise though just what an astonishing and forgiving material it really is. Follow the links scattered around the article for more information and do come and visit us at https://www.iron-fire.co.uk.