greenhavendaily.com | green living within your reach

Summer is a great time of year to spend time hanging out with family and friends. The warm weather also makes it a natural choice to enjoy the great outdoors.  If your backyard could use a makeover, consider decking it out with a "green" deck.  Having a space to enjoy ourselves and the weather is an important part of summer fun.  Creating that space in an environmentally responsible way is important for our planet's future.

Everyone knows that trees provide much needed shade and renew our air supply by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.  But did you know that they also lower air temperature by evaporating water in their leaves, stabilize soil, prevent erosion, improve water quality and protect aquifers and watersheds?  It is important for all of these reasons to protect these gentle giants.

Choosing eco-friendly decking is a great way to do just that.  Choices range from responsibly harvested wood options to those made from 100% recycled composite materials. 

Timber Tech (www.timbertech.com), Correct Deck CX (www.correctdeck.com) and Trex (www.trex.com) are all composite decking companies, who use reclaimed and recycled wood and recycled plastics to create "tree-free" decking materials.  Their products don't splinter or get too hot in the blazing summer sun.  Timber Tech uses wood recycled from the woodworking industry keeping more than 100 million pounds of wood waste out of landfills each year.  Correct Deck CX is made of 60% recycled hardwood sawdust and 40% PVC- and vinyl-free plastics (mostly in the form of recycled plastic mail totes).  Trex decking is made from 50% reclaimed wood and 50% recycled and reclaimed plastic.  They are one of the largest plastic bag recyclers in the US - recycling about 1.5 billion per year.

In one year, an acre of trees can absorb 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide - the same about of carbon produced by a car driven up to 8700 miles.

During our Correct Deck CX installation, the end cuts and other jobsite scrapes were able to be recycled because they made up of wood, PVC- and vinyl-free plastics.