Coconuts have invaded our lives lately with the onslaught of the coconut water fad. The city is mobbed with coconut water trucks and the grocery stores have replaced their varieties of enhanced water with a naturally “enhanced water.” Just last weekend I received a coconut water in a race kit for a bike race I was doing and I thought “where’s my Muscle Milk?” I won’t rant about my dislike for coconut water further, I know its incredibly healthy but I also find it incredibly disgusting. Moving on.

Palmwood Flooring. Designed by Durapalm.

A positive outcome of the coconut water invasion is the excess of full grown coconut palms which are no longer nut producing. Palms produce nuts for about 80 years. Coconut palm plantations are in abundance throughout much of the world and are often focused around areas with endangered rainforests. (Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia) Durapalm hopes to make palmwood a standard building material and deflect harvesting from other rainforest woods.

Palmwood can vary in color from dark to medium-red mahogany with an exotic grain that is reminiscent of bamboo. Durapalm palmwood comes in flooring, plywood, paneling and veneer that is durable and formaldehyde free. We’ve seen palms used before, Kirei makes a series of Coco tiles that feature the unique qualities of palm as does Pacific Green in their palmwood furniture collection.

About: Durapalm is offered by Smith and Fong, a well known manufacturer of Plyboo products. Smith and Fong was founded in 1989 with a focus on bamboo and sustainability. They practice sustainable harvesting and were the first to create a non-wood FSC certification for their bamboo resource in China. PlybooPure FSC-certified bamboo flooring was selected as a “Top-10 Green Building Product” by BuildingGreen, publisher of Environmental Building News in 2008.