Oh, that’s the question I love getting — because the answer isn’t a simple “all this” or “all that.” It’s actually a deliberate mix, and it depends entirely on which collection you’re looking at. Let me walk you through it like I would if you stopped by our workshop.
A big chunk of our Classic Slat series is indeed crafted from virgin lumber, but not just any lumber — it’s domestically sourced black locust and thermally modified ash. Why virgin? Because for these specific designs, we prioritize structural longevity without chemical treatments. Black locust, for instance, naturally resists rot for 40-plus years without a single coat of preservative. It’s an honest, hard-wearing material that ages into a silvery-gray patina, and we know exactly which forest it came from. All our virgin lumber is FSC-certified or sourced through family-run mills that practice selective harvesting, so we’re never contributing to clear-cutting.
That said, roughly 60% of our total output now uses recycled materials, and this number keeps climbing. Our best-selling Urban Eco line is entirely made from post-consumer recycled HDPE — basically the plastic from milk jugs and detergent bottles that your local recycling center processed. We extrude it into solid, wood-look boards that never splinter, never need painting, and shrug off graffiti. For every 6-foot bench we build this way, about 1,800 plastic containers are pulled out of the waste stream. You can literally knock on the armrest and feel the difference — it’s denser than wood, has a subtle textured grain, and stays cool to the touch even in direct sun because we incorporate a UV-reflective pigment.
Then there’s the hybrid approach that I’m probably most proud of. Our Riverside series uses a frame of recycled cast aluminum (old car engine parts, melted down and retooled) paired with either FSC-certified teak slats or recycled plastic lumber — customers pick their preference. The aluminum contains at least 87% post-industrial recycled content, and we do all the casting in-house to keep quality tight. This gives you that classic ornamental look without tapping into virgin metal ores for the bulk of the piece.
We also run a take-back program called Full Circle. When a bench reaches the end of its life — usually after 20 or 30 years, because we over-engineer everything — we’ll reclaim it, grind the plastic components back into raw flake, and send the metal to our foundry partner. Virgin lumber parts get repurposed into birdhouses or community garden beds, so they never hit a landfill in burnable condition. It’s not a marketing gimmick; it genuinely shapes how we design. Every new product gets a “disassembly score” that tells our engineers exactly how many minutes it takes to strip it down for recycling.
So, are our benches made from recycled materials or virgin lumber? The honest answer: both, but we steer you toward recycled options by default unless you specifically need the performance characteristics of natural wood. Next time you’re browsing the catalog, look for the green leaf icon — that’s the recycled content badge, and it’ll tell you the exact percentage right on the spec sheet. If you’re ever unsure, just reach out and I’ll pull the batch record myself. We track every single board’s origin because, frankly, you have every right to know what you’re sitting on.