Green Kitchen Remodeling
Thinking of remodeling your kitchen? A green kitchen remodeling project involves making choices based on both lifestyle and budget. These decisions can be complicated and involve a great deal of planning. Some green appliances and materials may outlast and use less energy but cost more than similar products that perform equally well. Fortunately, the demand for smart, stylish green products is helping to lower costs — making it easier to have a green kitchen and love it, too.
Your Sturdevant kitchen designer can help you choose the right appliances and materials to create a green kitchen and stay within your budget. Our people are experts on what is available in the marketplace and which products provide the best green results for the money invested in them.
Eco-Friendly Cabinets
Sustainable kitchen cabinets are made from wood and wood products that are produced using sustainable forest management practices. They feature formaldehyde-free glues and finishes with low volatile organic compounds that give off little or no toxic fumes.
When shopping for cabinets, ask if the cabinet boxes are built with wheat board or straw board. These products are made from agricultural waste, such as the chaff left over from farmers’ wheat crops. As a rule, they feature formaldehyde-free binders. They’re strong and rated to exceed the standards set by the American National Standards Institute for medium density particleboar the material commonly used to make cabinet boxes.
Green Countertops
There are many varieties of green countertops to choose from and all share similar characteristics: recycled or sustainable content, low-toxicity binders, and eco-friendly manufacturing processes. In addition, they’re highly durable. Countertops may be made from recycled paper, recycled glass, reclaimed fly ash, and cement or renewable bamboo fiber, post-consumer recycled paper, and water-based resin glue.Some eco-friendly countertops are 85% recycled glass—almost all the glass comes from curbside recycling programs. There are even countertops that are made of reclaimed wood from older barns, warehouses, and commercial buildings.