Natural Stone as an Eco-friendly Material

Natural stone as an eco-friendly material has numerous benefits. We will go though some of the most important advantages one by one.

 

Climate Change Crisis

Modern building materials that dominate commercial and residential building markets are often full of chemicals, plastics, and other harmful substances. And yet, we continue using them, in spite of the global outcry over climate change. Even those building materials that boast of how recyclable they are may end up in a landfill. And even if those building materials were commonly recycled, recycling still has an end-game that includes waste leading to the landfill, where it breaks down into a sea of pollutants that leech into the surrounding environment.

 

Benefits of Natural Stone as an Eco-friendly Material

We keep looking forward to the next miracle material, when the solution has been in front of us for centuries.

 

Natural Stone is Affordable Again

Natural stone once had a reputation for being expensive. But that is changing rapidly with new developments in its procurement process. Efficiencies have been gained through effective use of modern technologies, and quite often natural stone can be sourced locally, which also helps to bring down its cost.

 

Natural Stone Requires Little Maintenance

As a result of natural stone being so durable, it will rarely ever need maintenance work. Often, the only real maintenance natural stone may need from time to time is a power washing to clean it of surrounding environmental pollution. However, in these cases, less porous stone veneers can even make this form of natural stone maintenance unnecessary for longer periods of time.

 

 

 

Natural Stone Nearly Lasts Forever

In today’s litigious world, we wouldn’t want to say that natural stone will last forever –although there’s enough evidence to support the claim that it could. It was the durability, endurance, and engineering flexibility of using natural stone building materials that allowed so many ancient landmarks to stand the test of time. The Great Pyramids of Egypt, Machu Picchu, and the Mayan city of Tikal are just a handful of examples.

Natural Stone Has No Synthetic Ingredients

It comes from the earth, and can be used in its unadulterated form. Some popular examples of natural stone building materials include natural stone tiles for walls or natural stone flooring tiles, sandstone floor tiles, or even large building edifices, pillars, and the like entirely produced from natural stone!

 

Natural Stone Has Lower Environmental Impact  

Over the years, natural stone quarries have been reclaimed much faster and more efficiently, new technologies have prevented unnecessary environmental damage, and in many cases, quarries have been replaced with modern mining techniques that have less impact on their surrounding landscape.

Further to this, natural stone’s density has energy-saving benefits, and it creates fewer kilograms of CO2 per ton than general concrete, slate, timber, or steel.

 

Natural Stone Can Be Salvaged, Reused, and Recycled

As noted earlier, recycling isn’t a solution for most materials, it’s a band aid to a larger problem. In some cases, it’s more green-washing than anything. However, when you recycle natural stone, it’s still stone. It can be recycled many more times than plastic, too. Unlike plastics or other harmful materials, stone won’t hurt the earth when it returns to it. Additionally, natural stone has been salvaged from buildings hundreds or thousands of years old and reused in modern buildings.

 

Natural Stone is Consistent through Temperature Changes

Wood, metal, and cement all experience some form of expansion or contraction throughout seasonal temperature changes. These changes even have the potential to damage or warp these materials, whereas natural stone can remain consistent, even in the most extreme temperature changes.

 

Natural Stone Government Initiatives

Many governments are making it easier to choose natural stone by offering rebates, tax breaks, and other benefits for choosing environmentally friendly building materials on contemporary building projects.

 

Beauty of Natural Stone

Natural Stone doesn’t need to look like it came right out of the Flintstones; it can be used to create complex building designs and it’s gorgeous. Natural stone reconnects nearby human traffic with nature in ways that polypropylene or stucco walls never will.

 

Natural Stone for Green Standards and Social Responsibility

With greater public demand for social responsibility and green certification standards, natural stone’s social acceptability will stand as long as the material does itself. Choosing to work with natural stone over heavier polluting building materials puts institutions, businesses and home owners on the right side of history.

 

Considering Environmentally-friendly Building Materials

The reality is that it’s time to stop passing the buck on climate change, and both commercial and home builders need to consider truly environmentally-friendly building materials, like natural stone.

Since natural stone is recyclable, any stone remnants can be used in different ways around the home or reshaped and re-used in construction and industry. Using recycled stone can save the water, energy and other resources used to generate new building products from raw material sources.

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Sources

raadstone.com/Blog/10-reasons-why-natural-stone-eco-friendly-building-materials/lang/En.aspxwww.marvamarble.com/inspiration/blog/2017/06/Why-Environmentally-Friendly-Architects-Love-Natural-Stone.html