Building Green, Buying Green, Being Green

These days, the world is becoming more and more eco-friendly and green aware. One thing that's exciting about the green movement is that everyone from kids to adults can participate. Everyone gets to play a role in being eco-friendly and feel fantastic about doing a good thing for the planet and for ourselves. It's delightful to go to the park and eat at picnic tables that you know are made of recycled or readily renewable materials. At the same time, the picnic tables are both functional and beautiful.

An example of beautifully used recyclable materials comes from a company called Realm of Design. They invented an architectural, environmentally friendly "green stone." Their green stone invention is made of almost 100% renewable materials, primarily glass aggregate and pozzolan cement. Realm of Design is located in Nevada and they used glass recycled from Mandalay Bay and the Luxor hotels. They've made park benches with the recycled glass green stone. Each of the benches uses almost 600 pounds of recycled glass.

Even Realm of Design's beautiful classic facade of their building is made of green stone. Scott McComb, the founder of Realm of Design, noted at the unveiling of the eco-friendly benches that glass takes over 4000 years to decompose and is filling up landfills. But using recycled glass in the green stone will begin to eliminate that problem.

Green Scapes is another company that makes beautiful recycled park benches, trash receptacles and picnic tables. They wanted to make products made from recycled plastic into attractive objects, and they succeeded in reaching that goal with very attractive trash receptacles, park benches and picnic tables. They've developed a plastic that looks just like cast iron so that the bench looks like a classic park bench, and the bench slats come in a wide range of colors that make any environment prettier.

Another eco-friendly approach is to make park benches, picnic tables and trash receptacles from other types of recyclable materials, such as distressed wood from barns, recycled pallets, building materials and naturally felled trees.

For a truly hand-on, exquisite park bench you can have at home, you can can begin to grow one. People around the world grow their own benches, chairs, fences and even summerhouses. They are a living, environmentally friendly sculpture. The living arbor sculpture breathe in CO2, which is what we breathe out, and breathes out oxygen, which, of course, is what we breathe in, right where you sit or or right where you live. There's even a web page that shows how to grow a chair with 10 unbranched saplings!

Another type of park bench, picnic table or trash receptacle that are wonderfully green and eco-friendly are items made of bamboo. Bamboo is a natural product that is non-toxic, strong, truly beautiful, long-lasting and completely renewable. The reason bamboo is considered so eco-friendly is because it grows very fast. In fact, it is the fastest growing plant in the world, capable of growing up to a foot and a half a day until it attains its full growth. People report being able to hear bamboo grow, it grows so fast. Because of its fast growth, after it has been harvested a new stand can be planted and quickly grown, which is why it's referred to as renewable. Bamboo is one of the best renewable resources we have.

So it's easy to see that there are many ways to have green outdoor furniture and trash receptacles, making your world an eco-friendly place.