Floored by choice
When it comes to choosing flooring for your home, there are a myriad
ways to go. And while looks and cost are certainly going to be key
drivers in your decision-making, don’t forget that it’s also so easy to
build eco-friendliness and sustainability into the equation.
What makes a sustainable floor?
It’s a surface that’s produced from readily renewable materials via
eco-friendly processes. It also creates little impact on the ecosystems
around it in the course of its life-cycle, from harvest through to
manufacture, use and disposal. Many sustainable floors also have a
social aspect to them, in that traditional flooring types, such as
bamboo or sisal, tend to rate highly when it comes to sustainability,
and choosing such options ensures a future for the communities that
supply and manufacture them.
Top of its list
come the natural products cork, linoleum, and wood, with wool and
composite marble at the other end of the scale, due to their manufacture
and installation requirements.
So, what are some of the “greener” choices available to you?
Hardwood
Wooden floors have been popular around the world for centuries. They
add warmth and color to your interior scheme, are practical and easy to
clean, and – unlike carpet – are great for people with allergies. What’s
more, depending on the kind of timber you pick, this is a great
environmentally responsible flooring choice.
To begin with, trees are a renewable resource, but opt for a species
that’s plantation-grown and harvested commercially, rather than one
that’s plundered out of native forestry. They also absorb carbon as they
grow and this remains stored in your flooring, rather than being
released as emissions into the atmosphere. What’s more, at the end of
its useful life beneath your feet, your wood can be repurposed or
recycled, so that the carbon stays locked inside.
New technology has also made many types of hardwood floors much
easier to install than they have been in the past. They can even now be
ordered pre-finished, so there is no need to sand or seal the boards
before or after installation – they can simply be laid straight out of
the box.
Bamboo
Bamboo has been a traditional flooring in Asia for millennia. To look
at, it can resemble hardwood, but it is cut from a rapidly renewing,
highly replenishable resource – as bamboo is a grass, not a wood, it
grows to maturity in just 3-5 years. It stores up to 70% more carbon a
year than hardwoods, and can also be harvested without the need to
replant, as the root system is left intact. This all means its carbon
footprint is low, even after shipping out of Asia is included. It is
strong, extremely durable, naturally anti-bacterial, and resistant to
insects and moisture, which makes it ideal for humid environments.
There are a number of types of bamboo flooring available, each
varying slightly in manufacturing process, economic viability at source
and local preference. In Asia, the most common form uses thin bamboo
stems, cut as flat as possible, then trimmed to similar lengths. The
wood can then be stained, varnished or left with a natural look.
Outside of Asia, it’s more common to find more highly processed,
manufactured bamboo floors. These are generally made from mature bamboo
poles, again sliced into strips, then skinned and boiled to remove the
naturally occurring starches and sugars. The wood is then dried and
planed, delivering two major naturally occurring colors, similar to
beech and oak, respectively.
It’s when it reaches the lamination stage that that the
eco-friendliness of most widely distributed bamboo flooring tends to be
compromised. This is because it is generally bonded together using
urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins, which emit volatile organic compounds, so
aren’t great for air quality at the time. That said, bamboo uses much
less UF adhesive than other options such as particleboard substrate.
There are, however, bamboo products and systems available that don’t
use UF. These locking bamboo systems are the easiest to install, in
fact, with joints that click firmly into place and allow you to create
your own look using plank alignment and color.
Cork
Cork
tiles or planks are made from the bark of the cork oak, which is
carefully harvested from the living tree. This means it is a highly
renewable and sustainable flooring resource. It is stripped from a cork
tree about once every 10 years, once the tree is 25 years old. Each tree
can live for up to 200 years.
In terms of flooring performance, cork has a lot going for it. It is
naturally anti-microbial, is a great insulator against both noise and
heat loss, and is comfortable underfoot. Its springy resilience also
means it copes well with furniture placement and heavy foot traffic. To
round it all off, it’s fire-resistant as well.
Cork rates high on the “green” scale too. To begin with, as a tree,
it provides a living environment for other plant and for animal species.
It attracts few carbon emissions in the course of harvest, and if you
choose your sealant carefully, you will find there are also low-VOC
options available. It is also highly recyclable once its days as
flooring are done.
Linoleum
True linoleum (lino) – also marketed under the trade name Marmoleum –
has been around since 1855. It is manufactured from 100% renewable
sources and is 100% biodegradable.
Lino is a blend of dried and milled flax seeds (linseed oil), pine
resin, ground cork and pine resin, with a jute, burlap, or canvas
backing. It is fire-resistant and is also anti-static, which makes it
ideal for allergy sufferers. Further, as its decorative pigments are
embedded in the structure of the lino, it doesn’t fade.
Top-quality lino is extremely flexible – making it useful in
environments where tiles etc would crack – and durable. There are
cheaper linoleums available, but they are thinner in cross-section and
won’t last as long. Just make sure, if you are opting for lino, that
this is actually what you are getting. More common today is polyvinyl
chloride (PVC) flooring, which has become colloquially known as “lino”…
but isn’t. Yes, it wears well, but it also contains plasticisers,
chlorine-containing combustion products and impurities such as free
monomers, which are less than environmentally friendly.
Rubber
Rubber flooring tends to be associated with commercial and industrial
spaces, but – with a bit of imagination – can play a useful role in
bathrooms, kitchens and laundry rooms in particular. True rubber is
harvested from the living rubber tree, and is therefore a 100% renewable
resource. As a floor, it is easy to install and keep clean, insulated
against sound and vibration, and is anti-static, so great for
asthmatics. It should be fade-resistant too. Again, just make sure you
get the real thing, though – synthetic rubber is not a sustainable
material.
Carpet
This is an interesting one, given the sheer number of products from
which carpet can be made. Perhaps the greatest surprise to be found
here, though, is that wool carpets – although wool is a natural,
sustainable and renewable resource – rate very poorly on the “green”
scale, in terms of published research. This is largely due, not to the
wool itself, but to the energy requirements of the carpet manufacture,
the VOCs given off by the adhesives used in laying the carpet, and your
choice of underlay. That said, low-VOC carpets are becoming increasingly
available – or you can use tacks, as they used to do before the onset
of glues. And there are also more environment-neutral underlays coming
onto the market.
What are your other choices, if you’re worried about wool carpet’s
eco-friendly performance? Sustainable carpeting includes that made from
other natural fibers such as cotton, sisal, jute, or coconut husk.
Again, it’s a case of looking into the manufacturing and installation of
each individual product you are considering. One particularly “green”
option is carpeting made completely from recycled polyethylene
terephthalate – that’s the plastic used in food and drink containers.
There’s a never-ending source of the stuff, recycling it like this keeps
it out of our land-fills, and its dyeing is less polluting and requires
less energy than other flooring types.
Coconut
The timber of the coconut palm is a comparatively rare flooring
choice, but is one with good sustainability credentials. Coconut palms
grow quickly, but the wood is usually harvested from 60-80-year-old
plants that are no longer producing fruit. Coconut is a hardwood with an
unusual, appealing close grain. It is cheaper than teak, and as hard as
mahogany.
You should now be set to specify eco friendly fooring. There are a
lot of choices and you now have the information to help make your
decisions.