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Environmentally Friendly DIYSuggestions and Illustrations on Greener Approaches to Decorating
Why Doing It Yourself needn't be detrimental to the planet with a few simple and easy to follow guidelines that will ensure you are living a sustainable lifestyle
If you are a DIY enthusiast, you’ll know the quantity of tools and products you gather for yourself quickly adds up, something that could really be detrimental to the environment. But you can prevent your DIY efforts being harmful to the planet with some careful choices and a little bit of thought. DIY Essential PointsAsk yourself if you need to completely renovate a room or if you can manage to just change the color scheme and repaint or varnish your furniture rather than buying heavily packaged new goods. If you do want to buy furniture, consider going to flea markets and little furniture shops as well as charity shops. The very item you are looking for, be it a coffee table or a chest of drawers, could be found there for next to nothing, and you can simply put your own personal stamp on it with a little creative decoration. Check your local papers to find adds where people might be selling barely useds cans of paint, DIY tools they don’t want and unused materials. You’d be suprised how many times people buy more than they need at the DIY stores and are forced to sell it on much cheaper. Sustainable WoodEnsure that when purchasing new wood products, be they seperate pieces or in ready-made furniture, that they bear the Forest Stewardship Council’s logo, which means that the wood has been sourced from responsible and sustainable forests. Things to AvoidMDF, made popular by television make-over shows, is actually incredibly harmful to a persons health and the environment as noted by the organisation PATH. Whilst it is well documented that, when sanding or cutting MDF you must be in a properly ventilated area to avoid off-gassing, few realise that, through the life of the product, as a wardrobe door in your home or as a piece of some other kind of furniture, the dust you were careful to wear a mask to protect yourself against during the cutting process is in fact slowly degrading from the MDF board itself into the air. The potential health hazards of this are as yet unknown. Where possible only use MDF when it bears a 'formaldehyde free' mark. Furthermore, PVC is a chemical that is in fact classified as a carcinogen. Whilst the harmful effects on humans are not yet known, studies continue to find that there is the possibility of off-gassing from PVC shower curtains, paints and all materials in which PVC is contained. Where possible, minimise your exposure. Remember that these small, responsible changes on your part can make a big difference to the planet as a whole.
The copyright of the article Environmentally Friendly DIY in Green/Simple Living is owned by Steve Williams. Permission to republish Environmentally Friendly DIY in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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