Sustainability
IF A KITCHEN HAS 40 LINEAR FEET OF CABINETS, and it is completely torn out rather than refurbished, it will use up 45 cubic feet of landfill just to throw away. It will then take a tree that is 75 feet tall and about 60 years old to replace the cabinet components that do not need replacing. If we reface, we would use approximately 20% new materials and 80% existing material.
ALL our woods come from sustained hardwood forests supplying the world with a completely renewable cycle of growth, sequestering carbon from green house gases, and providing good jobs in rural areas. Some woods such as lyptus and beech come from forests specifically planted to reclaim damaged land. Although the commercial product is lumber, we all benefit by the reduction of carbon dioxide absorbed from green house waste.
If these efforts are supported, the forests are renewed rather than clear cut for raising cattle which worsens the problem, or soy beans which exhaust the soil in a few years.
See article in Kitchen & Bath Business
Trees are oxygen factories. An acre of young, healthy trees will produce 4,280 pounds of oxygen and capture 5,880 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year. Dead and dying trees in old forests use up more oxygen than they produce. The decay process requires oxygen use.
Cutting trees responsibly lessens the "greenhouse effect" on the environment because old and dying trees use more oxygen than they produce (and begin emitting carbon dioxide)."
Source: East Perry Lumber Company