If you’ve contemplated purchasing furniture or even a knick-knack made of a tropical hardwood, you know how very, very expensive they are. That’s reasonable, since they take so very long to grow (even in tropical environments) and must be shipped a great distance at great expense. You may therefore be surprised to learn that it is not uncommon for goods shipped from countries where these woods are relatively common to arrive in crates and on palates made from these very same precious woods.
And since they arrive as such, it is also not uncommon for this scrap wood to be thrown away, chipped up into a landfill or burned. Some furniture makers have noticed this and have begun recycling these crates and palates into high-value furniture. This is a good example of up-cycling, a practice by where a low value commodity is turned into something of much greater value by a little bit of creativity.
