The Green Issue

Lamin-Art is concerned about the impact that the production of our high-pressure decorative laminates can have on the environment.  As a committed and responsible member of the global community, we are always looking for ways to conserve energy and resources, reduce pollution and source raw materials that are environmentally friendly. In this issue of The Source, we will discuss some of the things we are doing as a company to have a positive effect on our environment, and offer some ideas for utilizing high-pressure decorative laminate in your "green" building designs.

Lamin-Art Joins USGBC

Lamin-Art is proud to announce that it is now a member of the U.S. Green Building Council^®. The USGBC is the nation's foremost coalition of leaders from across the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work.  USGBC members are actively developing the LEED^® Green Building Rating System which provides a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings.  Click here  for more information on how Lamin-Art products can contribute to helping your next design project earn credits toward LEED certification.

Architectural Representatives Driving Hybrid Vehicles

Lamin-Art has recently completed the conversion of its entire fleet of corporate vehicles to Toyota Prius featuring Hybrid Synergy Drive^® technology.  These popular "green" vehicles get excellent gas mileage with an EPA estimated combined city/highway rating of 46 miles per gallon.  Featuring electric motors and gasoline engines working together to provide the vehicle's power, the Prius reduces tailpipe emissions by almost 70% over the average new vehicle.  Other environmental benefits include lower CO² emissions, a reduction in the dependence on foreign oil and significantly lower lifetime energy use.  Lamin-Art currently has 15 Toyota Prius in its corporate fleet of vehicles located throughout the United States.  This vehicle fleet conversion is a part of Lamin-Art's ongoing efforts to reduce our company's impact on our environment.  For more on our environmental commitment, see our corporate Environmental Statement.

Designing Green with HPL

With a nickname like "P-lam", it is easy to think that high-pressure decorative laminate is made primarily of plastic.  In reality, the "p" should stand for paper.  More than 87% of the composition of HPL is paper, and the majority of the paper used in the manufacture of HPL comes from renewable or recovered resources.  Pulp that remains from the manufacture of both kraft and decorative paper is not wasted, but re-used to create additional paper.  And our suppliers go to great lengths to ensure that they source their raw materials from responsibly managed forests where they are actively planting more trees than they are harvesting for the production of paper pulp.  No rainforest timbers or tropical hardwoods are used in our products.
 

In fact, we respect these species so much, we have paid special attention to detail in our interpretations in order to preserve their natural beauty in our Premium Wood Prints collection.  Using 3 and 4-stage printing processes, we've created a line of wood prints that look strikingly realistic.  This offers you the opportunity to specify exotic species such as Zebrawood, Cocobola, Ebony, Rosewood, and Koa without endangering these rare woods. You can take comfort in knowing that specifying HPL instead of real wood contributes to preserving one of the world's most precious resources.

The use of HPL can also minimize VOC (volatile organic compounds) off-gassing.  Using the proper adhesives, HPL fabrication releases significantly less VOCs than conventional wood veneer finishing processes.  In cabinetry, casework and other applications where laminate is an appropriate decorative surfacing option, HPL can serve as a barrier that blocks the formaldehyde emissions from the adhesives and/or substrate used to manufacture the final product.  Even better, we recommend that new, low VOC substrates and adhesives be used in conjunction with our high-pressure decorative laminates.

Harvesting a New Dimension in Design

Finding new uses for materials that would otherwise be wasted is just one of the goals of designing products for the "green" marketplace.  With Abacá, Lamin-Art utilizes the leftover fibers from harvested banana plants in an unforeseen manner to create an interesting and organic-looking surfacing material.

We randomly sprinkle the recycled banana fibers over an array of background colors to create a dimensional decorative surface designed to satisfy your appetite for natural, yet functional materials, as well as intriguing new textures.  Abacá is manufactured in the same way as conventional high-pressure decorative laminate, therefore it can be used in any application where HPL would be specified including horizontal, high-wear areas.  Click here to learn more and request samples.