Recycling is nearly always a practical solution to not only prevent excessive landfill development, but to make new use of old materials for a fantastic variety of purposes, and anything from the landscaping industry to a fencing system to a plastic playground can benefit from plastic being recycled instead of thrown away. This makes for weather resistant landscaping, since plastic does not rot or warp from exposure to heat, cold, or moisture like actual wood does, so recycled plastic landscape timbers can be very useful for building a fence, framing a flower garden, building playground equipment, and more. Acquiring these timbers can be cheaper and easier than buying other materials like wood or metal, depending on where one goes to find their materials, and the items built with recycled plastic landscape timbers can be attractive, practical, and price efficient all at once.
Why Plastic?
Plastics such as vinyl, phenolic, polyester, and polystrene have been around since the early 1900s, and the concept of composite building materials dates back to the Egyptians and Mesopotamian people. Plastic does not biodegrade and is cheap and easy to manufacture and purchase, but this can be a double-edge sword. Plastic can easily fill up large amounts of space in landfills and trash in nature, since it is so common and does not break down, and this can be a real problem for the natural environment. For this reason, a large part of the “go green” initiative involves recycling materials like plastic whenever possible, and this means saving nature from pollution as well as providing cost-friendly, reused materials for builders of all kinds, and this certainly includes recycled plastic landscape timbers which can be a very flexible material for construction. And as mentioned above, recycled plastic landscape timbers are not nearly as sensitive to their environment as actual wood is, which can reduce costs for installation. Plastic may also be resistant to vandalism and will not produce splinters like wood will, and it is lighter than metal.
Building with Recycled Plastic Landscape Timbers
What can be built with this material? A lot of different things, which is part of the appeal. Landscaping, for example, can be made quick and easy with landscaping boards. Such materials can be cheaply acquired and used to create flower beds and gardens, and they can also be used to create low, attractive wood-like frames around trees as another method of landscaping. These timbers can also be used to create park benches, which are not as easy to vandalize via carving as wood is, and these timbers may also be used for fencing. Often, fences are not just practical for keeping out people and animals, but they can also be attractive as landscaping and can act as a trellis for plants to grow on, and this makes them even more effective as landscaping.
Playground equipment, meanwhile, can be made out of wood, metal, and plastic timbers, and a playground in a rain-prone area such as Seattle may want to be made from recycled plastic landscape timbers and similar recycled plastics rather than actual wood to resist rotting and warping. These timbers can be tough, light, price-efficient, and attractive for building playground sets such as obstacle courses for kids, or even smaller swing sets (larger swing sets will probably require the sheer strength of steel). These timbers can also form the low walls around sandboxes for playgrounds, effectively keeping the sand contained. These timbers may also help keep different types of terrain separate, such as grassy soil, bark dust, and pebbles so that these materials do not become too mixed and messy on the playground.
Private homeowners and city managers alike can make use of recycled plastic landscape timbers. A homeowner might use these timbers for a raised flowerbed in their back yard, or to raise a fence to keep out stray dogs or people or to keep pets in the yard. Commercially, these timbers can be used for the same purposes, but on the scale of a park and other public area, such as larger flowerbeds, fences, and park benches. This price-friendly material can make the construction and maintenance of playground equipment and landscaping easy for any town or city to manage for their parks.