An
Environmental Asset
Wood products have so many cost and
construction advantages over other building materials that it is easy to forget what an
environment asset it is to use wood.
We sometimes forget that wood is naturally
reusable, recyclable and biodegradable. Or the best insulator of all structural building
materials, thus conserving finite fossil fuels and coal by requiring less energy to heat
and cool a home built with wood. Or that it takes far less energy to transform trees into
wood products than it does to manufacture steel, aluminum, masonry or plastic products.
Less pollution of the air and water,too.
Wood is also renewable. Ores and petroleum
used for non-wood products. Once used, are not renewable. They are gone forever.
Trees, however, are forever. Contrary to what alarmists
say, America is not running out of trees. More trees are grown each year in the U.S. than
are harvested or lost to disease, insects and fire. A third of America is covered with
trees today, more than we had 70 years ago. And being planted at the rate of nearly five
million a day – five trees a year for every American.
Finally, remember that a growing forest removes the
greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, while giving off life-sustaining oxygen. Can you think of
a better environment exchange than that? |
