With global warming never far from the headlines, we all need to find a more sustainable way of living. This includes the way we furnish and decorate our homes, and investing in eco tables is a great place to start.

Tables are often the centrepiece of the lounge and dining room. So an eco table will provide a great topic of conversation whether you’re inviting friends over for coffee or dinner in the evening.

Eco tables can be made from a wide variety of materials, which can be split into two main types: recycled materials and those taken from sustainable sources.

Eco tables made from recycled materials

With a bit of imagination and some DIY know-how, there’s a wide variety of items that can be turned into an eco table.

An old car hood, for example, can be welded and reshaped into a hardwearing tabletop. A coffee table made from old bits of cars and other discarded objects will certainly give your living room a unique, eye catching centrepiece.

Other items that can be recycled and used as eco tables in your eco home include wooden doors, food trays, bottle tops and waste plastic, all materials that would otherwise be dumped in our clogged up landfill sites.

Eco tables made from sustainable materials

When shopping for a wooden eco table make sure it’s made from FSC certified timber. FSC stands for Forestry Stewardship Council, and wood marked with the FSC label ensures it’s been cut from sustainably managed forests where trees are replanted and cleared areas aren’t left as wasteland.

Another sustainable material growing in popularity for making eco tables and other eco furniture is cork. Cork is an exceptionally environmentally friendly building material because it’s simply stripped from an oak cork tree’s bark, rather than having to cut down the tree itself. The bark will regrow within 10 years, enabling cork to be routinely stripped from trees without causing deforestation.

So whether you prefer the unique look of an eco table made from a recycled car door or from sustainably cut wood, there are plenty of great eco tables to choose from for furnishing your eco home.