7 Best Recycled Plastic Outdoor Furniture Manufacturers

Do you love the great outdoors? Who doesn’t?

It’s just great to be close to nature, but in this modern world of hustle and bustle, it can be a constant struggle to spend the time that we’d like to in the presence of wildlife and beautiful landscapes.

Gardens are mankind’s way of snatching back a little nature into easy reach. It might not be the Appalachian mountains, but our backyards are our sanctuary.

Getting out in the fresh air by taking the time to sit out in your garden for a few minutes each day can be such a great mood adjuster.

It can improve your sense of wellbeing, which can so easily suffer from the stresses and pressure of modern life.

Nature gives so much to us. Trees recycle the carbon dioxide we produce into clean and vital oxygen for us to breathe.

We cannot survive without them and yet, we clear precious forest landscapes each and every day to make way for our expanding sprawl of development.

While there isn’t a lot one person can do about that, there are smart choices we can make to give our planet a helping hand.

Considering how much the human race relies on nature while also taking from nature, it’s surely our responsibility to protect our word where we can and to recycle the harmful materials that we insist on producing for our convenience.

The evils of unrestricted plastic production have long been preached.

Well, at least in the last four decades we have started to be aware of the damage that plastic causes our planet, and we have more recently started to find suitable alternatives.

This is excellent news, but we’re still buying plastic all the time, where alternatives don’t yet exist or are too expensive to make viable.

Fortunately, one industry has halted the need for new plastic to be included in its products. Garden furniture is now widely available, made from recycled plastic.

This is great news for any nature-lover who doesn’t want their purchase choices to negatively impact the environment.

After all, it’s rather hypocritical to sit on a new plastic chair in your yard, while admiring the plant life or enjoying the bird song, all the while knowing that what you’re sitting on is one of the main things that can endanger the ecosystem.

We think it’s so much better to relax in your little slice of nature on ethically manufactured furniture. It’s easier to relax when you know you made the right decision for the planet on which you rely and live.

So with that in mind, we’re giving you a useful list of seven of the best providers and manufacturers of recycled outdoor furniture.

So, the next time you’re looking to update the furniture in your garden oasis, you’ll have an idea of where to go to find some new items that are stylish and eco-conscious.

Why Recycled Plastic Furniture?

As more and more plastic gets produced each year, tons of it ends up in our oceans. This is terrible news for marine life, as they ingest so much of the stuff each year.

Some items like polythene may look convincingly like a tasty jellyfish to a hungry marine animal, but the reality is that they’ve eaten something harmful that will never be digested.

Plastic can take hundreds of years to decompose, and the process doesn’t take much less time in a turtle’s stomach.

What’s more, the plastic pandemic is not just harmful to animals and fish, it’s harmful to us as well. When plastic does eventually break down, it doesn’t disappear.

It turns into microplastics, which then break down into smaller pieces until the naked eye can’t see them.

This can mean that we are unwittingly ingesting microplastics in our water that our bodies are no more equipped to break down than a fish’s is.

Our wonderful water companies do their best to rid our water of debris, but the problem is only going to get worse until we stop manufacturing plastic, especially single-use plastic.

Is Recycled Plastic Furniture Better Than Wood?

Buying outdoor furniture that is made from recycled plastic is one way we can keep some single-use plastic out of the water cycle and safely store it in a useful way.

The benefits aren’t only to the environment, though. Plastic furniture is extremely hard-wearing and will outlast any garden furniture made from wood by several years.

As we know that plastic takes many years to break down, manufacturers can guarantee that their furniture will not rot like wood might.

Wood also needs maintenance to keep it looking fresh. This might mean painting it every year, which can be time-consuming and expensive, and possibly treating it for wood-boring insects or algae.

Unlike wooden furniture, recycled plastic furniture can be left outside all year round, without suffering any lasting damage. It is maintenance-free, which is great news for busy-garden lovers.

So now you know why recycled plastic garden furniture is the way forward, let’s have a look at some providers and manufacturers that you can trust to give you quality and value for money.

1. Itsrecycled.com

This is a Tennessee-based company that makes quality outdoor furniture from 100% recycled plastic. Their product range is extensive.

They do outdoor dining and bar sets, rocking chairs, chaise lounges, picnic benches, and even furniture specifically designed for children for little outdoor enthusiasts.

This company is proud to be an American business and claims to be a family-owned and operated business. They cater for domestic or commercial orders as well as being able to perform custom jobs.

The style of the patio furniture is like traditional- contemporary, with classic designs in modern colors and textures.

2. Patioliving.com

This patio furniture stockist are proud to make their products in the USA and their prices are extremely reasonable. If you particularly liked the look of your old wooden garden furniture, then you will love these designs.

They are surprisingly convincing at looking like wood. If your biggest nightmare with plastic patio furniture was that they’d look like shiny, molded, 80s budget furniture, there’s no need to worry.

The vibrant matte colors are beautiful and, the designs look like classic timber furniture, lots in the New England style.

You might especially love the tropical-looking Malibu blue that many items are available in, and the fact that they offer free shipping on most items is a big bonus too.

3. Amazon.com

The key thing when trying to find furniture made from recycled plastic on Amazon is to search for the term Polywood. Polywood is a specific brand of “lumber” made from recycled milk jugs, among other things.

They are reformed to create a material that looks like wood but is far more durable and weatherproof. Amazon stocks various genuine

Polywood products, but they also sell garden furniture that is not made out of recycled plastic, so make sure you check before you click ‘add to cart’.

4. Polywood.com

You can get genuine Polywood furniture directly from the manufacturer through their website. They stock all sorts of items and categorize them into style collections, so you can have items that are all from the same style concept.

We particularly love the South Beach collection which features classic, coastal designs, and the Modern Adirondack collection which succeeds in looking so relaxed and contemporary.

All designs are featured in a modern matte gray, but there are so many colors to choose from. The only drawback we can see is that standard shipping takes 7-9 weeks, so make sure you have ordered in good time for prime garden season.

You don’t want to order it to spruce up your patio for your backyard barbecue only to find it’s not going to get to you until well after the event.

5. Trexfurniture.com

The name might suggest antiquated designs from when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but they have certainly brought outdoor seating into the 21st century.

Trex furniture has a 20-year warranty and is proudly made in the USA. It is made from Polywood which is a recycled plastic lumber substitute and their designs are similar to those on the Polywood website and their prices are similar too.

Their Yacht Club collection is nautical themed and features classic, familiar designs you can expect a lot from.

Contemporary style is all very well, but sometimes a traditional, tried and tested design is what your patio needs. Some people like designs and colors that don’t attract too much attention.

You may not want people admiring your maintenance-free dining set, over your beautiful rose garden that you spend so much time caring for, after all.

Trex offer a beautiful range of vibrant colors that make a statement and wood imitation tones for a more natural look.

A key benefit of polywood furniture is that it is resistant to salt spray damage, so if you live by the coast, you can be sure that your new, pristine, white furniture will stay white, despite the salt in the air which notoriously stains.

Normally people wouldn’t think that white garden furniture would be a wise choice, with all the required maintenance to keep it white, but

Trex furniture cleans with soap, water and a soft bristle brush, so nothing could be easier.

Trex also stock, decking and railing products in tones which compliment their garden furniture, so everything can be in color harmony together. What could be better?

6. Poly-lumber-furniture.com

This provider offers free delivery, sleek designs and natural colors. Unlike some of their competitors, their prices are a little less wallet-friendly, but their designs are beautiful.

If bright colors are your thing, though, you might want to look elsewhere because this online store is devoted to natural tones which resemble natural woods.

Many of the products are only available in natural tones, but some collections feature contemporary colors like sunset red and pacific blue.

While their furniture holds the usual 20 years Polywood warranty, bear in mind that their accompanying cushions are covered for 30 days from purchase, and it does not cover damage incurred through “acts of God”, so maybe don’t leave them outside in a lightning storm.

7. Vermontwoodsstudios.com

With so many choices of retailers to buy Polywood garden furniture from, Vermont Woods Studios claim they go the extra mile for customer satisfaction and care.

They offer quick shipping and easy returns as well as promising the best value in all-weather outdoor, lawn, and garden furniture you will find.

They offer a lowest price guarantee, which may well tip the scales and get them some new customers. Everyone wants to get the best quality for the best price, so this is great news.

Vermont Woods Studios also offer free shipping in the continental USA and a lifetime warranty on their Polywood items.

We are starting to see how they managed to achieve a 98% customer satisfaction rate. This company really seems to care about their customers as well as the environment.

With so many reasons to buy garden furniture made from recycled plastic, there aren’t many pros to the wood furniture debate, but it’s good to know that this company only use sustainable American wood to make their wood furniture and are constantly striving to plant trees to replenish damaged parts of the Amazon rainforest.

They have planted more than 100,000 trees around the world to help slow the effects of deforestation, and their stocking Polywood furniture must have been a natural step in their quest to make garden furniture more sustainable.

Good for them.

When your outdoor furniture needs replacing, we hope that you will seriously think about making an eco-friendly choice.

Key terms to search or look out for are “recycled plastic”, “Polywood” or “RPL” which stands for Recycled Plastic Lumber. These will help lead you to retailers of genuinely recycled plastic garden furniture.

Sadly, some garden furniture manufacturers still make patio furniture out of new plastic which will only make the plastic pandemic worse for future generations, but you can do your bit for the planet by choosing to keep some single-use plastic out of the oceans and away from those it can harm, including humans.