Tropical Hardwood and Recycled Plastic Lumber

Restaurant Planters custom logo insert screen wall and liners with advanced drainage
Restaurant Planters and liners with advanced drainage and slide in easy custom logo panels.

Tropical Hardwood and Recycled Plastic Lumber (RPL) each have their uses. Specifying no-maintenance Recycled Plastic Lumber makes it easy and cost-effective to go Green.

Three landscaped planters on a tropical roof deck. Two planters made with recycled plastic lumber flanking one made with aged Ipe Tropical hardwood to contrast color and finishes.
Please discuss with clients the benefits of saving the diminishing resource of tropical hardwood for future generations by specifying 100% recycled HDPE plastic lumber. Our recycled plastic lumber (RPL) requires no maintenance, lasts for decades without fading as it is UV stabilized, saves your clients money, and will look better over time than wood ever will. RPL planters may be pressure cleaned for sanitation as DeepStream’s trademark marine anodized aluminum legs mean that there is no paint or powder coating to fail.

Recycled Plastic Lumber (RPL)

5 Stock colors of recycled plastic lumber
5 Stock colors of standard embossed woodgrain Recycled Plastic Lumber
5 Premium Wood Grain Embossed and 2 colors of smooth Recycled Plastic Lumber
5 Premium Woodgrain embossed and 2 colors of smooth Recycled Plastic Lumber

By specifying Recycled Plastic Lumber instead of tropical hardwoods you can stop contributing to climate change while saving money with maintenance-free recycled plastic. RPL will look far better than natural hardwood after just a few years.

DeepStream’s premium wood grain Recycled Plastic Lumber looks so real you have to touch it to tell its not wood. If your design criteria calls for solid colors we stock black and white smooth planks, but many other colors are available. With a 50 year warranty by it’s manufacturer, low maintenance, pressure cleanable for sanitation and to remove graffiti, it’s a perfect material for indoor and outdoor use.

By selecting recycled plastic lumber for your order, you will be preserving the world’s rainforests, the cooling lungs of the earth, while creating a sustainable market for post-consumer and post-industrial plastic waste.

By 2017, RPL was specified more often than natural wood due to its labor-saving ease of maintenance and good looks. With the introduction of fifth generation RPL, which looks so much like natural wood that you have to touch it to tell the difference, by 2023, sales of RPL has increased to over 88%.

Backed by a limited lifetime warranty by the manufacturer, click this link for a printable PDF.

DeepStream’s products in recycled plastic lumber have been outselling tropical hardwood since 2016.

Natural Tropical Hardwood

2 color shade samples of 3 natural tropical hardwoods from darkest to lightest: Ipe, Jatoba. Cumaru, Lyptus

If you do order natural hardwood with DeepStream’s trademark anodized aluminum extrusions, unlike carpenter-built planters, you know that your purchase will last for decades and not waste this precious resource. Do not order natural wood for any trash or recycling bins where spilled food or drinks will stain the wood as it will need lots of labor intensive refinishing to maintain a sanitary look.

All natural tropical hardwood planters will turn a light gray color and show stains and mold spots if not treated with a waterproofing and UV protector several times a year. This treatment will make all wood darker over time.

Given the time and expense necessary to keep natural hardwood looking good, and the damage done to the rainforests to harvest it, versus the “set and forget” ease of using recycled plastic lumber, you should give serious thought to which you will select for your project. RPL will look far better than natural hardwood after just a few years.

About Wood and Planter Maintenance PDF

Click here for a detailed comparative blog about planter design, materials, forms, and why we build our planters with a structural aluminum frame so we can offer a Lifetime Structural Warranty when fiberglass planters offer 1 – 3 years.

DeepStream has been committed to protecting the environment, adopting the principles of Sustainable Design and production since our inception.

For every product DeepStream’s American craftsmen create for our clients using wood or recycled plastic lumber, we plant between 50 and 100 trees in your honor through Trees For The Future.  By mid-2021 our program has planted more than 500,000 trees. Their Forest Garden program has many positive benefits for the earth and its people, in addition to planting trees.  For more information follow this link: Trees.org

Direct link to the Trees-for-the-Future website
For more information use this Direct Link to Trees For The Future Website

Manufacturer’s printable PDF limited 50-year warranty on recycled plastic lumber

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