Why Should I Choose Recycled Australian Hardwoods Over New Timber?
October 2022
It can be hard to know whether to choose new or recycled timber when planning your projects. Whether you're building a back deck or a front door, a kitchen benchtop or feature flooring, your teenager's first study desk or splurging on your first post-retirement custom-built piece of furniture, here’s why we reckon recycled timber is preferable to new timber.
1 — Timber stores carbon until it decays or burns
Wood is around 50% carbon, bound from the atmosphere as the tree grows. When the wood is burnt or decays, the carbon combines with oxygen and is released as carbon dioxide - 1.8 tons for every ton of dry recycled timber.
Using recycled timber allows the carbon already stored to remain 'locked up' for another 20, 50 or hopefully 100 years, instead of being released into the atmosphere and contributing to our global greenhouse gas emissions.
Plus, those old pieces of timber have some of the most interesting stories to tell. Giving them a new life allows that story to be told, and for it to have a second story with your family, colleagues or community.
2 — Supporting local recycling means less carbon miles
Choosing recycled timber keeps precious Australian hardwood timbers from landfill, and helps to create a circular economy in the timber and building industry. It avoids the production and often global transport of new timbers. The majority of our timber is sourced from our local region & NSW, and we recycle and dress all timber in our Canberra workshop. All joinery and furniture making also happens on site.
As we’re located in the ACT, our workshop runs on 100% renewable energy, with rooftop solar and electric forklifts. We’re proud to be operating in a part of Australia that is making great headway with environmental policies and business uptake of environmental initiatives.
After over 28 years of timber recycling, we’ve developed highly efficient supply chain relationships and timber processing systems. This means that if there’s timber to be saved in the region, you better be sure that we’ll know about it!
A perfect world for us is one where no high quality Australian hardwoods go to waste… ever. And we’re doing our darndest to make that vision a reality.
3 — We prefer Australian hardwood timber because it means we can design and build products that will last a long, long time
Because recycled Australian hardwoods are so precious, and because we care deeply about the planet, we make sure that everything we design and build will stand the test of time.
Hardwoods are extremely durable. We sell predominantly Australian species, and we love designing and building with hardwoods because their durability means that you can expect decades of high performance from the timber. The patina developed on old recycled hardwoods is also an attractive feature—in many cases the older and more worn the timber gets, the more beautiful it becomes.
4 — Recycled timber is easy to care for, and doing so will further extend its lifespan
Apart from being super durable—making it less easily damaged than other materials—recycled timber can be quite easily maintained and refinished—often without previous experience doing so.
Recycled timber furniture, benchtops, flooring, or any of our other products finished with the natural Osmo finishes, can be easily cared for using Osmo Liquid Wax cleaner. And if deeper scratches occur down the track we can then send out one of our cabinet makers to sand and re-coat your timber.
If you need maintenance or repair advice feel free to give us a call.
5 — New timber isn’t always logged legally or ethically
And finally, some timber species are logged unethically or even illegally. Rainforest timbers like Merbau and Kwila have often been illegally logged out of rainforest in South-East Asia, which is a massive environmental issue for both deforestation and habitat destruction.
When choosing ethical and environmental timber, we obviously recommend recycled timber as a priority. If that’s not possible, it’s important to always choose Australian or New Zealand timber that is sourced from responsibly-run plantations that are FSC or PEFC certified.
When you boycott illegally or unethically logged timbers and choose recycled Australian hardwoods instead, you’ll help to reduce demand for this devastating market.
Written by Ellie Keft.
Get in touch to find out what recycled timber we have in stock right now
Choosing Thor's Hammer timber over ducking down to Bunnings—or even sourcing timber from sustainable plantations—is hands down the best, most environmentally conscious and future-focused way to build and create with timber in 2022 and beyond.
We've got truckloads of interesting timber hauls arriving regularly, sourced from the demolitions of old houses, shearing sheds, bridges, and tonnes of other interesting locations. All with a story to tell, and all with much more life to give.