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Eco Wall Coverings for Your Eco Home

Eco Wall Coverings for Your Eco Home

To keep your eco home smart and attractive you’ll want to redecorate it every few years. But this needn’t mean causing damage to the planet in the process. Because there are a variety of attractive eco wall coverings available which are environmentally friendly both in how they’re manufactured and disposed of.

Eco friendly paint

Conventional lead based paint contains a toxic soup of pesticides, herbicides and solvents which emit harmful particles into the air. These volatile organic compounds (VOC) are blamed for causing asthma and damaging people’s health.

Eco friendly paints, on the other hand, are made from natural products, such as milk, water, plants or soy, and contain none or fewer toxins than conventional paint. Consequently, eco friendly paints don’t cause people to develop breathing problems, so they’re ideal for decorating your eco house if anyone in your family suffers from asthma. Eco paint can also be easily poured away without contaminating the earth.

Eco wallpaper

Wallpaper is experiencing resurgence in popularity. But traditional vinyl wallpaper generates a lot of toxic chemicals when it’s manufactured and isn’t biodegradable. Traditional wallpaper paste also contains toxins to prevent the growth of mould, which can be damaging to people’s health when they’re inhaled.

Eco wallpaper, however, is a healthier eco wall covering material for both your family and the environment for decorating your eco house. It’s made from paper that’s harvested from renewable sources and you can use eco friendly paste to apply it to your walls too. Eco wallpaper also uses ecologically friendly water based paints and dyes, rather than synthetic colouring agents, which is another way in which it’s a greener way of decorating your eco home.

When purchasing eco wallpaper remember to check whether it’s marked FSC certified. This label ensures it has been harvested using renewable methods approved by the Forestry Stewardship Council.

Natural plant fibres

If you’d like to add some texture to the walls in your eco house, eco wall coverings made from natural plant fibres are an excellent option.

There’s a wide range of natural plant fibres to choose from, including arrowroot, sea grass, jute, hemp and hand pressed leaf. The fibres are woven by hand, and because they’re naturally produced they can be harvested over and over again without causing long term deforestation.

Natural plant fibre eco wall coverings are also 100% biodegradable, so they can be ecologically disposed of rather than dumped in landfill sites.

Bamboo

Bamboo is another great eco wall covering option for adding texture to your eco home’s walls. Bamboo regenerates within 3-5 years, whilst wood takes 15-20 years, which means bamboo can be harvested more regularly without harming the environment.

Bamboo eco wall coverings are hand woven and applied to a paper backing to create wall flats for giving your eco home a unique, modern and ecologically friendly look.

Cork

Cork is harvested from the bark of the cork oak tree, which grow in the Mediterranean. Because it’s the bark that’s removed, rather than the tress itself, cork is an exceptionally environmentally friendly eco wall covering material. It offers a soft, velvety texture, and its honeycomb structure makes it a beautiful material for decorating the walls in your eco home.

Eco Materials for Decorating Your Eco Home

Eco Materials for Decorating Your Eco Home

One of the ways you can make your eco house as environmentally friendly as possible is to decorate it using natural eco materials. Whether it’s the type of glass, paint or wood varnish you use, there are plenty of eco materials you can use for smartening up your eco home and looking after the environment at the same time.

Using eco materials is also beneficial for the construction industry because they’re easy and cheap to produce. Eco materials contain natural, rather than synthetic, substances, so they can be harvested over and over again. And because they’re also biodegradable they can be easily disposed of, rather than pollute the earth after being dumped in a landfill site.

Eco Glass

Eco glass generally comprises of 95% recycled glass and plastic, and can be used as a hard wearing surface for kitchen worktops. Eco glass worktops are available in a range of finishes to resemble marble, quartz or granite, and match conventional glass for practicality and style.

Eco fabrics

Natural eco fabrics are the environmentally friendly alternative to synthetic cloth because they’re made from renewable plant fibres. The two most popular eco fabrics are cotton and jute (also called hessian), and other types include hemp, recycled polyester, organic leather, wool, felt and fair trade silks.

Eco fabric can be used for armchair coverings, carpets, curtains and rugs in your eco home. As well as being more environmentally friendly and biodegradable, eco fabrics are more breathable than synthetic cloth.

Eco Paints

Conventional lead based paint emits harmful chemicals into the air, such as pesticides, herbicides and toxins, which are referred to as volatile organic compounds (VOC). These chemicals are damaging to the environment and people’s health. In fact, conventional paint is blamed for causing asthma, chest complaints and sick building syndrome.

Eco paints, on the other hand, contain fewer or no toxins at all, in which case they’re labelled as being VOC free. Eco paints are odourless and popular types are milk, plant, water or soy based, rather than lead.

If anybody in your family suffers from asthma or other breathing problems then you should consider switching to using eco paint to decorate your eco home.

Eco varnish

When decorating wooden surfaces in your eco home, you should consider using varnish with a natural, rather than synthetic, resin. Conventional synthetic varnishes contain acrylic, vinyl and algid, which are environmentally damaging to manufacture and dispose of.

Eco varnishes, however, contain a plant based resin. Popular types contain resin from dammar, copal and rosin trees. Eco varnishes are therefore more environmentally friendly to manufacture because the resin can be harvested over and over again, making them the green friendly eco material for protecting wooden surfaces in your eco home.

Top 4 Eco Flooring Materials for Your Eco Home

Top 4 Eco Flooring Materials for Your Eco Home

Eco flooring for your eco home needs to provide the perfect balance between comfort, appearance and, of course, the minimal impact on the environment. Made from materials that are either recycled or harvested sustainably, there is a variety of eco flooring types to choose from:

Bamboo

Bamboo is a great environmentally friendly alternative to hardwood for flooring your eco house. Trees take 15-20 years to regenerate, whilst bamboo takes a mere 3-5 years to return to its previous state. This means it can be harvested more regularly with less damage to the environment.

Bamboo is exceptionally strong, with a hardness that’s closer to steel than it is to hardwood. Coupled with this is that bamboo easily matches the natural beauty of timber. And bamboo eco flooring is available in a range of earthy tones and colours.

The only drawback is that bamboo can warp in moist environments, which means it maybe shouldn’t be your first choice as eco flooring in your bathroom or laundry room.

Cork

Cork is harvested from stripping the bark from oak cork trees. The bark can be stripped without causing permanent damage and will grow back within 10 years, making it an exceptionally environmentally friendly eco flooring material.

Cork offers excellent heat and sound insulation. And its durability makes it ideal for busy areas, such as lounges and hallways, in your eco house. Exceptionally flexible, cork will spring back to shape after people have walked across it. Cork is also water and stain resistant, making it perfect for bathrooms and other rooms with a lot of moisture.

Available in a range of colours and patterns, cork is an attractive and durable eco flooring choice for your eco home.

Marmoleum

Marmoleum is a particular brand of linoleum made from cork, linseed oil, rosin, jute and limestone. These are all natural products and 100% biodegradable.

The properties of marmoleum are often compared to those of vinyl, with one big exception being that vinyl is totally synthetic. In the creation of vinyl a lot of toxic pollutants are created, which are very damaging to the environment. It’s for this reason that marmoleum is becoming a popular alternative.

Marmoleum is very hard wearing, so it’s ideal for eco homes with pets and children. The only drawback is that it can excrete a slight aroma of linseed oil, which might irritate some people.

Available in a wide range of colours, marmoleum is an excellent environmentally friendly and durable eco flooring material.

Carpet

Most carpets are made from synthetic materials (such as nylon and polyester) and account for an estimated 2% of the waste in landfill sites. However, environmentally friendly carpets for eco homes are now available, made form natural fibres like wool, jute and coconut husk.

Eco friendly carpets also often have a hessian backing, which makes them a completely natural eco flooring option.  They can be easily recycled, which can give them a greater stain resistance than synthetic carpets.

Eco friendly carpets offer warmth, comfort and the reassurance knowing that when it needs to be replaced you won’t be contributing to our already overflowing toxic landfills.

Turn Your House into an Eco Home with Eco Furniture

Turn Your House into an Eco Home with Eco Furniture

With tackling global warming, pollution and our shrinking rainforests high on the agenda, living an ecological lifestyle is seen as the responsible thing to do. This is why eco furniture is growing in popularity all the time.

It seems inevitable that eco houses will become more widespread in the future. And eco furniture, such as eco chairs, eco tables and eco sofas, enables you to start living in your own eco home today.

Why We Need Eco Furniture

Some scientists estimate that half the world’s mature tropical rainforests have already been cut down in the last 50 years, and that we could be left with only a fifth of the world’s rainforests by 2030.

With rainforests so vital for reducing pollution and global warming, it’s essential that we find more sustainable ways of living. And this applies to the way we furnish our homes too.

Eco furniture is built from recyclable materials or those from sustainable sources. Being made from recyclable parts means they can be easily disassembled and reused, whilst wooden eco furniture, such as eco chairs and eco beds, is made from wood taken from ecologically managed forests.

The environmental impact of eco furniture is also minimised by sourcing materials locally. This reduces the carbon emissions produced by transporting them to the workshop, compared to the pollution created by planes and ships hauling them across the Atlantic.

Longer lasting

A lot of cheap, mass produced furniture isn’t designed with longevity in mind. So it often deteriorates and breaks after a few years, instead of lasting a lifetime, as well designed furniture should. This leads to unwanted furniture becoming dumped into our already overflowing rubbish tips.

Eco furniture, on the other hand, is designed to be durable and easy to repair. This helps it to last a lot longer than furniture which isn’t designed with sustainability in mind. So investing in eco furniture makes smart economic as well as ecological sense.

Elegant and comfortable

Going green and creating your own eco home doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice on comfort and style. Eco furniture is just as luxurious, comfortable and attractive as any conventional item of furniture.

In fact, lying in your own eco bed in your eco house can offer a heightened sense of comfort knowing you’ve helped to reduce pollution, save trees and take care of the planet at the same time.