If you're planning a kitchen renovation, you may wonder if it's better to hire a remodeling contractor to
Are you working to get an apartment or home ready for its first tenant? If you are new to being a landlor
Healthy trees look great, so they can add a lot of curb appeal to your home or business. This curb appeal
When you decide to add a gutter system to your home, you may think of handling it yourself. This is espec
If you have lived in your current house for several years or are planning to purchase and move into an ol
Nearly everyone wants to make their backyard look nice and to have everything it needs to do what good backyards do, namely be a safe place for barbecues and playing children. The problem is that many people are a bit wasteful when it comes to their yards. Here are some eco-friendly alternatives to setting up your backyard.
Eco-friendly Fencing
The problem with a lot of traditional fencing is that it uses wood from trees that can't be easily replenished. This means that if you get fencing from traditional sources, you may be unwittingly helping to destroy forests in the process.
For example, if you get Cedar fencing, it could take as long as 50 years to replenish the wood from that tree. A good approach is to instead use a more sustainable material. One example of this is bamboo.
Bamboo grows so quickly that you can harvest from it every three years instead of every 50. It's one of the fastest growing plants on the planet. Bamboo is plentiful on Earth as well. This means that you can harvest bamboo over and over without having negative ecological effects.
A fence made of bamboo will also be even more durable than traditional wooden fences, so you don't have to sacrifice function for the sake of the environment. Contact fencing contractors in your area for more information on this.
Biopesticides
When you're working on your lawn, it's going to be tempting to use the most effective chemicals possible to keep insects from ruining it. One such chemical is DDT. This is a common active ingredient in many traditional insecticides.
The problem is that DDT is a potential threat to the environment. It can cause internal damage to birds, for example. This doesn't mean that you have to give up your lawn to the destructive power of insects, however.
There are a number of biopesticides available now that can keep insects away using natural ingredients instead of environmentally harmful ones like DDT. An example includes a pesticide that works through pheromones. These pheromones disrupt mating patterns of insects such as butterflies or moths to keep them from breeding.
Another example includes special traps that use alluring scents to pull insects into traps. An additional example of a greener approach to lawn protection is a microbial pesticide. These pesticides can be dropped on a lawn, where they are then eaten by destructive insects.
The bacteria will then kill the insects internally. The positive thing about microbial approaches is that you can target specific destructive insects without harming other animals in the environment.
Share