Alternatives
Building materials that can be used in place of tropical wood
1. Recycled Plastic Lumber – Axion turns milk jugs, detergent bottles and all those plastic soda bottles into tough structural building material that lasts for 100+ years–after which it can melted down and reused again. You’re not just saving rainforests with RPL. You’re reducing landfills and supporting a truly sustainable material.
2. Salvaged woods
3. Kebony – The geniuses in Norway have invented an organic process whereby they inject sugars into the pores of domestic woods and make them as durable and weather-resistant as tropical hardwoods. Right now, Kebony must be shipped to the U.S. from Norway, which is a slight drawback. But we understand that it actually has less of an environmental impact to ship wood from Norway than to, say, truck it from the Great Plains to the East Coast.
4. Black Locust – Throughout much of the eastern United States, this tree is perceived as an invasive species. But designers in the know also recognize the wood from the black locust tree to be tough and long-lasting.
5. Clay pavers
More materials coming soon.
NYC Infrastructure Built with Rainforest Wood and the Alternatives that Could Be Used Instead:
1. Benches – recycled plastic lumber, black locust, kebony, white oak (not old growth)
2. Boardwalks and decking – recycled plastic lumber, kebony, clay pavers (we don’t recommend traditional concrete due to energy-excessive processing)
3. Pilings – recycled plastic lumber
4. Flooring – bamboo, cork, kebony
Danger, danger. Road closed. Take an alternate route. When the signs on a road warn of danger, you take an alternate route in order to get to your destination safely.
Right now, New York City government uses rainforest wood to build & renovate bridges, subway ties, ferry terminals, boardwalks, and marine transfer stations. However these materials spell DANGER for everyone on Earth. New York City Government is the largest consumer of tropical hardwoods in North America. Luckily, there is an alternate route. And it’s a relatively painless path: numerous alternatives exist.
Click on the photo to watch the video of Jane Goodall on Alternatives
Jane Goodall, Friend of the Chimpanzees as well as United Nations Messenger of Peace is holding a block of 100% recycled plastic lumber. “This wood from these beautiful trees is being used for things like railroad tracks ties,” Jane says, “There are substances made from recycled materials like this block [of 100% recycled plastic].We don’t need benches exposed to the weather made from tropical hardwood. And if you’ve been in the forest, if you’ve seen these beautiful trees, if you’ve seen how life is entangled and supporting itself, then you would feel the same kind of pain that I feel when a tropical forest is destroyed.”
RPL railway ties utilized by Chicago’s CTA
Rutgers professors Tom Nosker and the late Rich Renfree have been working on recycling plastic into lumber since the mid-1980s. With a patented process licensed from Nosker and Renfree, Jim Kerstein, founder of Axion International, developed a product in the 1990s that utilized a material combining two types of consumer plastics: polyethylene, found in detergent containers and milk and juice, and polystyrene, from plastic foam items such as styrofoam cups. Today Axion International produces a building material based on another patent of Noskar’s; this one utilizes 10% recycled fiberglass to create a material as stiff as hardwood.
Renfree Bridge understructure
100% RPL is our favorite alternative for NYC’s infrastructural needs. Unfortunately, several wood-plastic composite lumber companies give recycled plastic a bad name. Don’t fall for the falsely advertised Trex, at one time owned by Mobil Oil, which is used in home decking. Trex is a wood sawdust (fluff or cellulose) plastics composite lumber; over time, the material warps.
New Jersey’s Richard Renfree RPL Bridge during construction. Nosker 3rd from left & Renfree 2nd from left
While New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority still purchases Ekki, an African rainforest wood, for their subway ties, Chicago Transit Authority is the nation’s largest purchaser of RPL railroad ties.
It’s a decade after the CTA’s visionary design and the MTA, the nation’s most renowned transportation system, has still not followed their lead. But the science is in. Just ask the U.S. Army.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has specified over 100 bridges made entirely of RPL for Fort Bragg. These bridges are strong enough to withstand the heavy traffic of 60-plus ton army tanks. Tropical hardwoods are far from the only building material capable of supporting great weight.
What is holding back Mayor Bloomberg, the Departments of Sanitation and Transportation, Hudson River Park Trust and all the other agencies from using RPL? The Department of Sanitation is calling for tropical hardwood to be used for their three newly proposed marine transfer stations. But RPL could be substituted in these transfer stations, board for board, without changing a single other detail in the plans or bids.
Fort Leonard RPL Bridge
Rutgers professor, Tom Nosker, standing on an RPL I-beam.
RPL won’t splinter, rot, or warp. It’s more durable than wood and deosn’t leach the chemicals, such as creosate, that are often used to preserve wood. RPL increases demand for recycled materials and reduces landfill waste. It can even be recycled back into more lumber, eliminating the high costs of disposal. RPL creates local manufacturing jobs.
“We think chemically treated wood or rainforest wood as a construction material really doesn’t belong anywhere,” Nosker said.
RPL is easier to install than tropical hardwoods, reducing the cost of labor. RPL has a life expectancy of 100 years. Ipê, the hardwood used for Coney Island’s boardwalk, has a life expectancy of about 20 years.
“We can convert the entire U.S. Waterfront infrastructure – piers, docks, pilings, bulkheads – and only use 3% of the plastic we throw out,” Tim Keating of Rainforest Relief states.
RPL Pilings, Middletown, New Jersey
When exposed to weather the mechanical properties of wood weaken dramatically over time, leading to a percentage of the boards being replaced as part of regular maintenance. (An estimated 10% of the original Ipê boardwalk is all that remains after 20 years.) However, after years of weathering, RPL has actually shown an increase in mechanical properties–boards become stiffer and stronger over time.
Though recycled materials are the number one alternative we advocate, we’re looking at the issue of sustainable domestic wood such as black locust from the North East’s second growth forests. Please explore the following pages on the Rainforest Relief website for more information:
Guidelines to avoiding wood from Endangered Forests and Hierarchies of Wood Use, which explains wood options, from best to worst.
RPL Bench in Brooklyn
What has New York City done so far? First, New York Transit Authority (TA) has used a minimum amount of recycled plastic lumber ties to test in the City’s subways. But we’ve been waiting for ten years to hear what they think. After years of Rainforest Relief campaigning, the Parks Department has recently switched to domestic wood for park benches, thus eliminating the use of 50,000 board feet of tropical hardwoods each year. They’ve also committed to building new boardwalks without any tropical hardwood.
New York City still has a long way to go. Unfortunately the rainforests of the world do not have a long time to wait. We’re watched from all over the world. If we can do the right thing here, than other cities will follow our lead.