Do Your Homework Before Buying a Green Floor

If you are building a house, or remodeling, it is a great time to explore green options, including your flooring.

Green flooring is never "no impact" or "zero emissions," but green flooring does mean that making a responsible choice will significantly reduce your impact on the environment.

When it comes to choosing green flooring, you have many different options, which compare to traditional flooring. These include: carpet, carpet tiles, carpet padding, cork floors, bamboo floors, linoleum, leather tiles, wood floors, natural fiber, rubber tiles, limestone composite tiles and more.

How you decide to choose a floor may depend on your design aesthetic, as well as where you plan on placing the floor. Investigate as many of these floors more eco-friendly than others.

For example, while green carpet options are made from natural or recycled fibers, synthetic carpets are made from petroleum, a nonrenewable resource.

Bamboo is one of the latest buzzwords in green flooring, because it comes from a renewable source. However, they come from Asian forests, which may eventually result in deforestation and also require a lot of transport to get from there to here, resulting in lots of emissions.