In today’s world, where we are all trying to do our bit for the environment, you may be wondering if woodwork as a hobby is helping to slowly kill our planet. I’ve thought a lot about this topic and to answer this question we are going to be looking at various aspects of woodworking/ upcycling to decide whether we should feel guilty when embarking on a new project.
In this article we find that upcycling is sustainable due to how it helps us reduce waste. However, if you are concerned about veganism, you need to ensure that you are using products that are vegan-friendly to refinish your piece of furniture.
Making new wooden furniture can be considered sustainable, provided it remains in use for a long time. It’s certainly better than plastic! However, deforestation makes this an unsuitable hobby for ethical vegans. Vegans can still make ‘new’ furniture but instead of using brand new wood, they can repurpose old wood for their projects. Previously used wood such as pallets, scaffold boards, railway sleepers and other old wooden furniture can all be repurposed into a new piece of furniture in a vegan-friendly way.
WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY?
In case you’ve been living under a rock, I’ll give you a quick overview of why we should care about our environment and long term sustainability. In fact, I’ll just give you two words: resource shortages.
The human population is, quite frankly, huge. Luckily, the population growth rate peaked long ago, however, we are living in an era post a time when it was growing at an unprecedented rate. Did you know that there are almost 8 billion people in the world today? And did you know that just 200 years ago there were only 1 billion? The reasons for this explosion of new humans are developments in medicine and technology. (Source: Our World in Data)
What does this mean? We live on a planet that is fixed in its size. There is limited space and limited resources available to us. Resources such as food, raw materials and quite simply space itself. This means that the more humans there are in the world, the fewer resources there are to go around. And our huge numbers aren’t just impacting humans – we are causing problems for all organisms living on this planet. We are constantly destroying habitats so that we can build housing, grow food and farm livestock. We synthesise and then dump chemicals, pesticides, and unwanted manufactured goods into the natural environment. We are using renewable and non-renewable resources like they are magically replenishing themselves a second later. And most of all, we are releasing some nasty gases into the atmosphere causing the ozone layer of this planet to get thinner and thinner. The ozone layer is what keeps the sun from turning us all into crispy bacon in less than a heartbeat but we don’t seem to be too bothered about it. (Source: The Balance SMB)
Why is all this an issue? Check the news. The fires, floods, tornados, hurricanes, droughts and around 90% of the biggest killer diseases around today are happening because of the environment we have cultivated and it isn’t going to get any better unless we do something about it. This is why you should be making sure that you do your bit for the environment – hobbies and all.
WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT VEGANISM?
Veganism is a way of life that aims to not take advantage of other living creatures. Most people hear the word vegan and think of people who don’t eat animal products but there is much more to it than that. Ethical vegans believe it is wrong to take advantage of or exploit other living creatures, be it for food, materials for manufacturing, scientific testing and any other reasons really. (Source: The Vegan Society)
As humans, our brain has put us right on top of the food chain. This means that we can go ahead and decide who in other species (and in some cases our own too) lives and dies and how that happens. We force breed animals and call this species preservation or food. We murder them and also call this species preservation or food. Oh, and did you know that we kill them ‘humanely’? Yes, supposedly, the word ‘humanely’ can apply to killing. Would it be ok if I killed another person with a stun gun? I mean they had a good life and it’s instant so it must be ‘humane’, right… I think not.
Humans are just another animal and we should be using our super brains to help and nurture other species not take advantage of them. This is our responsibility.
IS UPCYCLING WOODEN FURNITURE SUSTAINABLE?
This brings us to our first question on whether upcycling is good for long term sustainability. FYI, upcycling is when you take something old and repurpose it into something new. It’s when you breathe new life into something old and unused.
Yes, upcycling is sustainable. This is because the whole point of upcycling is to reuse rather than throw out. Have you ever taken anything to the tip before and seen someone hauling a sofa, a couple of armchairs and a dining table into the giant rubbish skips? Upcycling stops this sort of nonsense behaviour. The more we avoid throwing things out, the fewer new things need to be produced to replace these things. This is good.
I’m not saying that you aren’t ever again allowed to throw something out. If it’s really past its used by date then sure, it can go. But consider whether you can re-purpose it or revamp it in any way first. And if you can’t, give someone else the opportunity – pop it on eBay, Shpock or Gumtree. Additionally, when you need a new thing, firstly see if you can get it second hand and jazz it up with upcycling. Wooden furniture is especially easy to bring to life with a bit of paint and elbow grease so next time you need a new table or cabinet, why not check out what other people are trashing first?
IS UPCYCLING WOODEN FURNITURE VEGAN-FRIENDLY?
You may be wondering how on earth upcycling can be vegan or not vegan. I think there are a few areas to consider such as materials used and the item being upcycled.
Upcycling is vegan friendly if the materials used don’t contain animal products. Additionally, some vegans may be interested in finding out the history of the item. For example, if the item is a butcher’s table, they may not consider this a vegan-friendly piece of furniture.
Figuring out whether a given product such as paint or a stain is vegan is the tricky part. Currently, there isn’t any requirement for manufacturers of such products to state whether the products are vegan friendly or not thus you have to look at the ingredient list, which sometimes isn’t even included. If you do have the ingredients, they likely contain chemical names which you will need to research. Alternatively, you can contact the manufacturer to ask.
Not all is lost though as some brands specifically focus on being vegan-friendly and sustainable such as this brand here. I think over the next few years the product offering in this space will increase.
IS MAKING NEW WOODEN FURNITURE SUSTAINABLE?
Okay, so if upcycling is sustainable because it means less waste, does that mean that making new wooden furniture is not sustainable? No, it does not.
Making new wooden furniture yourself instead of buying new, mass-produced stuff is sustainable long term because you are likely to keep it for the rest of your life. Additionally, wood is considered a renewable resource, although it takes on average 40 years for softwood to grow to harvestable size and 150 years for hardwood to do so. This means that if you are making a new piece of wooden furniture, it will be sustainable only if you keep it for many years.
This seems like a long time but there is another reason that new wood furniture can be considered sustainable – it is an alternative to plastic. Plastic has quite literally taken over the world since its invention in the 1900s. It’s in our clothes, furniture, homes, gardens, cars, and even drinking water… Did you know that over 94% of bottled and drinking water in the US contains microplastics? (Source: Surfrider Foundation) I’m sure that the UK is no different. This is an absolute catastrophe because plastic does not decompose. In my eyes, anything that can replace plastic is good, including wood furniture. We just have to make sure we don’t throw out our creations after just a year or two.
IS MAKING NEW WOODEN FURNITURE VEGAN-FRIENDLY?
As with upcycling, the vegan issue here is a little different to the sustainability issue.
Making wooden furniture using new wood is not really vegan-friendly even if the finishing products used are suitable for vegans. This is because wood as a resource is one of the leading causes of deforestation which has catastrophic impacts on all living creatures in the area. Some vegans may consider this ok as habitat destruction is a side effect of the product and no actual animal products are used – it depends on how far you follow the chain of destruction with your ethics. After all, deforestation also happens for growing food and we can’t simply stop eating!
If you are an ethical vegan and are concerned about deforestation, not all is lost for you. If you want to build your own furniture, there are things you can do to ensure your projects are guilt free, such as:
- Re-purpose old wood such as pallet wood, railway sleepers, scaffold boards, roofing timbers etc.
- Take apart old wooden furniture and re-use that wood to make new pieces
- If you use new wood, make sure that this piece of furniture is for life
SUMMARY
In short, both upcycling and making new wood furniture can be sustainable hobbies but things aren’t that simple for ethical vegans. When upcycling, vegans will want to make sure that they are using products that are not using animal ingredients. When making new wooden furniture, vegans will want to avoid brand new wood as much as possible and instead re-purpose old wood such as pallets, scaffold boards and railway sleepers.
I hope you found this article informative but please leave a comment below if you think I missed anything. I’d love to hear your general thoughts on the topic too!
