If you’re in the market for new flooring for your home or business and try to lead the most environmentally friendly lifestyle possible, it’s well worth it to explore today’s many stunning, eco-friendly, flooring options. It’s easy to add flooring to the home that is not only sustainable and environmentally responsible but attractive and affordable to boot. Happily, you no longer have to compromise between aesthetics and environmental consciousness when selecting flooring—and you don’t have to spend a fortune to upgrade to green flooring, either.

Eco-Friendly Flooring: The Basics

Like anything that is labeled “green” or “eco friendly,” green flooring is flooring that is healthy for the environment. This may be because it is made out of reclaimed materials, thus preventing them from ending up in landfills. It may also mean being made out of sustainable, renewable materials that don’t have as negative of an impact on the health of the environment. Additionally, green flooring doesn’t contain volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which off-gas into the air and reduce indoor air quality. As a result, it can help improve the overall health and well-being of everyone in the home.

Why Go Green with Flooring?

Replacing flooring in the home gives you the opportunity to make earth friendly choices for whatever you do next. Classic Floor Designs is a major proponent of green flooring, and we offer a wide array of options. Going green with your flooring brings many advantages to the table. By opting for flooring that’s made out of reclaimed or recycled materials, you keep non-biodegradable materials out of landfills. When you choose flooring that’s made out of sustainable materials, you can feel good knowing that the plants that were used to make them will regrow in a timely manner, preventing ongoing damage to the environment. Beyond these benefits, green flooring enhances indoor air quality in a home by eschewing VOCs.

Types of Eco-Friendly Flooring

Now that we’ve got you all excited about eco-friendly flooring, you’re probably ready to learn about the most popular green options. Happily, there are more options than ever when it comes to this type of flooring. Consumers have become increasingly conscientious about carbon footprints and their impact on the environment, so demand has grown significantly for flooring that’s made out of green materials. Some of the most popular options include:

Carpet – Sure, carpet’s been around forever. It can be made out of many different materials, however, and many of them happen to be remarkably good for the environment. If you want carpeting that is easy on the environment, choose a style that is made out of natural materials. Such materials include jute, wool, cotton and sisal—all of which are available in a dizzying array of colors, styles and designs. There’s also polyester Berber, which is made out of recycled plastic bottles. Recycled carpet tiles are another way to go and have the additional advantage of being highly customizable. If one tile becomes damaged, you can easily swap it out for a new one.
Hardwood – There’s no denying the beauty and elegance of hardwood flooring. Hardwoods are non-toxic, renewable, recyclable and biodegradable, so they are excellent options for environmentally conscious people to consider. Another increasingly popular option is to use reclaimed or salvaged wood from old buildings and the like. It is then re-milled to ensure optimal quality and beauty. New lumber from dead trees is also a great way to go, as it keeps dead wood from being burned up and contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer.

Bamboo – People often mistake bamboo for a hardwood, but it’s actually a very fast-growing grass. Bamboo for flooring can typically be harvested within five to seven years while hardwood typically requires 50 to 150 years to grow before its ready. It’s available in a variety of colors and grains, so it’s easy to find a unique look to suit your home. As an added bonus, bamboo is naturally resistant to termites and is quite affordable when stacked up against hardwood.

Cork – We’re often greeted with looks of surprise when we recommend cork as an eco-friendly flooring choice. Indeed, many folks are unaware that cork makes for a great flooring material, but that’s undeniably the case. Cork oak trees aren’t destroyed to produce cork. Rather, only the bark is stripped away, and it can then regrow in as little as three years. Cork is comfortably soft to walk on, provides great sound insulation and lasts for 10 to 30 years. It’s also naturally resistant to mold, fire, mildew and termites.

Tile – The previous options aren’t usually suitable to areas of the home that are subject to moisture, like kitchens and bathrooms. Luckily, tile can be every bit as green as the other options; you just have to buy the right thing. Terrazzo tile that’s made out of recycled materials like stone, glass, masonry and concrete is available. It lasts an average of 40 years and is resistant to mold, mildew and stains. When purchasing, make sure that few—if any—VOCs were used in the epoxy to avoid inadvertently introducing them to your home and degrading its indoor air quality.

Go Green with Classic Floor Designs

Enhance the environmental friendliness of your home with green flooring from Classic Floor Designs. We strive to provide our valued customers with the finest flooring options that are available today, and we are the go-to authority for green flooring. As such, we stock a huge array of eco-friendly flooring options, including bamboo, natural carpeting materials and even leather, which is ideal for small, less heavily trafficked areas and is prized for its longevity, elegant aging and green qualities. Our team can help you select the green flooring option that’s perfect for whatever remodeling project you are undertaking, whether it’s in the kitchen, the master bedroom, the bathroom or elsewhere around the home. With so many beautiful eco-friendly flooring options available and so many affordable choices, green flooring is a natural choice in more ways than one.