Eco-friendly flooring

Written by By Martha Uniacke Breen (http://www.styleathome.com)

When it comes to renovating, it’s not easy being green. Given an increasing chorus of manufacturers’ eco-marketing claims (that may or may not withstand closer scrutiny), finding products that serve our needs as well as they do the earth’s, often requires a certain healthy skepticism — and sometimes, the willingness to pay a premium for our principles.

Moreover, in a home, the term “environmentally friendly” has two distinct layers of meaning. The first has to do with the health effects of having the stuff in your house, from the out-gassing of VOCs and other harmful chemicals to dust, allergens, spores and stray fibres. And the second, of course, is doing our part to save what’s left of our planet.

With a product like flooring, which takes up so much physical space in your house, its effect on both the inner and outer environments should be of concern, and some of the worst offenders are also the most popular: hardwood and carpeting. But there are plenty of alternatives that are friendly both to the environment and to you, without sacrificing design, comfort or too much extra green (money, that is).

Hardwood
Most of us know by now that the destruction of the rainforest reached emergency proportions some time ago. The rainforest continues to disappear at a rate of about 100 acres per minute, and if current practices remain unchecked, it will be gone forever in another generation or two. And it’s not only the jungles of Borneo or Costa Rica that are under threat: Over 95% of North America’s old-growth forest has already been lost, and Canada, arguably, lags behind the U.S. in conservation efforts.

But we still like nice hardwood floors. One solution is to demand, and only purchase, wood that has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an independent industry consortium, to be sustainably grown, harvested and processed. FSC inspectors evaluate a timber firm’s commercial forests and verify that their natural biodiversity is being maintained, that the same number or fewer trees are being harvested than removed, and that the forest is naturally self-sustaining. The inspection process continues down the line through the cutting and processing stages — certifying that employees work under humane, fair-trade and safe conditions — and carries through as far as possible to the end user.

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