These days more homeowners are keeping the health of the environment in mind when they are shopping for all kinds of household fixtures and fittings and counter tops are no exception.
Whether you are considering a kitchen makeover before putting your home up for sale, to put your own decor touch on a recently purchased home or are simply looking to make a change in the one you are happy with, there are a great many different green counter top options available right now – some you may have heard about before and some that may be new to you.
Here is a little more information about some of the best of them:
Bamboo
Because it is actually a grass and not wood at all, bamboo is a very renewable resource and considered very eco friendly for use in the home, far more so than conventional wooden counter tops. But there are more benefits to bamboo counter tops than their greenness. Bamboo is extremely durable and very hard (they use it for construction scaffolding in China, it is that tough) very attractive to look at and it has natural antibacterial and antifungal properties as well.
Alkemi
Alkemi is one of latest green counter top options that makes use of an everyday material that you might not expect to find used as a counter top. In this case it is recycled aluminum. The metal is shaved into small shards and then embedded in a colored resin. The result is a durable counter top that is very attractive, especially when the light catches the individual pieces of metal in different ways.
Recycled Glass
It might be hard to imagine at first that glass could work as a counter top material but it does and it works very well. In the case of recycled green counter tops the glass comes from things like beverage bottles and when these are crushed into small pieces the pieces are then set into a resin to form the counter top slab. Recycled glass counter tops are very beautiful, they can be found in a rainbow of different color combinations and the counter top surface itself is very heat and stain resistant.
Reclaimed Wood
Wooden counter tops have been kitchen favorites for centuries but standard ones are not very green at all. Reclaimed wood countertops are a much more eco friendly choice. The wood used to create can come from old construction or from old furniture. The reason though that many people love reclaimed wood counter tops is not just because they are green but because they have a mismatched, vintage air about them that is very unique.
Other Green Options
As more and more manufacturers develop new green products the number of different green counter top options available is still steadily increasing and theses counters make use of some rather unusual materials indeed. When embedded in resin to create a hard surface recycled paper, flyash (the by product of burning coal) tree bark and even sunflower seed are all being used to create great green counter tops that look and function every bit as well as their more traditional counterparts.
In terms of cost most of the green options mentioned here cost about as much as a good laminate counter top would. They can be harder to find at the moment if you live outside of a large urban area but as demand increases so will supply. And by the way, should it come time to sell your home these eco-friendly counter tops may be quite the draw for buyers who like a less usual, but luxe, look but are also looking for a home that is more environmentally conscious.