Ikea Products Made From 600-Year-Old Trees

[marmar]

Published on Tuesday, May 29, 2012 by Inter Press Service

Ikea Products Made From 600-Year-Old Trees
Subsidiary of Swedish furnishing giant is destroying ancient and unique Russian forests

by Ida Karlsson


STOCKHOLM - The home furnishing giant Ikea, founded in Sweden in 1943, is facing heavy criticism for the logging and clear-cutting of old-growth forests in the north of Russian Karelia by its wholly owned subsidiary Swedwood.

According to leading environmental organisations, such logging is destroying ancient and unique forests that have a high conservation value.

Wood is by far the primary raw material in Ikea’s products. Roughly 60 percent of the products stocked in the multinational’s 300 department stores around the world contain wood in any form.

For years, the company has used the "We Love Wood" slogan to promote the fact that Ikea only uses wood obtained in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable way. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/29-1

[Nye Bevan]

1. Cool. So Ikea furniture is actually antique (nt)

[postulater]

2. Wood is so renewable there is no excuse for using ancient forests.

Especially for Ikea's products which are simple furniture, many things are laminate.

[hedgehog]

3. What is the life span of a typical piece of IKEA furniture?

[louis-t]

4. It ain't 600 years, I can tell you that.

[HopeHoops]

5. That's because the assembly instructions are 600 years old too.

[begin_within]

6. And it takes another 600 years to assemble the damn thing

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Here's a photograph purporting to show proof

http://protecttheforest.se/ikea/en/photographic-evidence/gallery/2

These are not 600 year old trees. FSC rules are actually pretty rigorous.