Construction, in particular concrete, is a major contributor to Co2 emissions. Cutting down trees to use as lumber doesn’t help either.

So a California company has come up with a clever way to reuse non-biodegradeable plastic in biolumber, an alternative to lumber. Fewer trees are cut down, and less plastic goes into landfill.

BioLumber is made from recycled plastic, and the company claims that it is stronger and 4 times more durable than conventional lumber. It’s comparable in cost to a good red wood lumber.

HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) plastics, like shopping and trash bags, cleaning product bottles and milk jugs do not bio-degrade. Once such plastics end up in landfill they stay there forever. Recycling one ton of plastic saves 30 cubic yards of landfill space.

There are other plastic lumber products, but according to Biolumber none of these are structural grade. You can use the same tools with biolumber that you normally would with lumber construction. The material is as light as wood and floats like wood does. Currently though, biolumber can only be used for exterior applications like bridges, docks and even railroads