Cabinet hardware with a small carbon footprint

If you’ve looked at a landfill in the recent past, you know that our waste problems in this country are getting completely out of hand. This leaves many people wondering what they can do, at all levels, to produce less waste and therefore leave a smaller carbon footprint. This article is about just that and focuses on something you probably would never think about when it comes to scrap, cabinet hardware.

Cabinet hardware for the most part is relatively overlooked. How often do you really think about the handles that open and close doors, drawers, and cabinets in your home? Try this. Take a walk through your kitchen and count the number of knobs, drawer pulls, and other pieces of cabinet hardware that are in your kitchen. The total will probably surprise you. Now think if you were just doing a little remodeling work and decided to change all the cabinet hardware. That’s a lot of waste!

So how can you keep redoing your kitchen or other cabinets without spending so much? Well, there are a few options that can make you feel a little better about remodeling:

Recycled Hardware – The first thing you might think of when shopping for new cabinet hardware is to buy parts that are made from recycled materials. That means these hardware pieces are made with materials that were kept out of landfill in the first place, so you’re reducing the waste products that are thrown away by buying them.

Recycling your hardware: Besides thinking about buying recycled hardware, how about making sure your hardware gets a new home? Just because you don’t like it anymore doesn’t mean it can’t be used. So before you throw away all those pieces of hardware, why not package them all up together and give them to a local charity that can use them or sell them to someone who can?

Reuse your hardware: Another option is to look at your cabinet hardware and see if you really need to get something new. If the paint is peeling or you just don’t like the color anymore, maybe you can remove them and repaint or retain them? The process really isn’t that hard, especially with the hardware. Often you just drop all the pieces into a bucket of stripping agent and with a little scrubbing they are all clean and ready to become something new.

Sustainable Resources – Finally, if you can’t find another way to do it and need to buy something that is new and not recycled, one thing to think about is looking for sustainable resources. While this will not reduce the waste dumped, it will at least reduce the impact on the environment. You see, some resources are difficult to replace or take many, many years. Others, like bamboo, can be regrown easily and quickly, and their use has less impact on the planet.