Silestone is increasingly becoming the most favored, indoor-surfacing option for applications such as kitchen/bathroom countertops. Apart from its amazing resilience to common surfacing issues like cracking and scratching, Silestone is also an affordable countertop option. However, besides these evident benefits, there is one more admirable quality about silestone—it scores amazingly high in terms of being an eco-friendly material.

Green Certifications Prove Silestone as a Green Choice

Silestone is one of the rare engineered countertop materials that have been able to attain globally recognized certifications for their eco-compatibility. This includes an Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) certification for Silestone that underlines the fact that it doesn’t pose any harm in terms of toxicity.

Many constructional materials pose a direct threat to the health of the homeowners since toxic vapors gradually leach from their surface into the surrounding environment. However, Silestone is regarded safe for the most delicate of environments like childcare centers and schools, emphasizing that it poses no health hazards.

Silestone has been able to sustain the rigorous green-performance yardsticks put forth by Cradle to Cradle Certification wherein the environmental performance of an industrial product is closely monitored. This is the primary reason why building contractors are increasingly endorsing the use of Silestone in commercial buildings, as it helps to earn points for achieving the crucial, LEED Certification (awarded to buildings for their environmental performance).

Understand How Silestone Sustains Energy Conservation

The manufacturing process of Silestone is energy-efficient, as numerous ingredients are sourced from the post-consumer stage. These are materials that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill site and further degraded the environment, are instead recycled in the Silestone manufacturing process. This recycling process takes materials like broken glass and porcelain bits through a waste-management process to filter-out any toxicity found in such materials and their appreciable qualities are then forged within the Silestone surfaces.

Need more proof? Silestone was endorsed as a ‘Green Countertop’ at global forums

The biggest endorsement for the eco-friendly characteristics of Slestone countertops came during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, where over 71,000 square feet of Silestone countertops were used. Each of the 850+ apartments at the Olympic Village were constructed with baths and kitchens adorned with Silestone countertops. The reason for this was simple - after the debacle at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009, the organizers wanted to re-emphasize the use of green options in an affordable and practical manner. To accomplish this, the Olympic Committee chose Silestone surfaces for their unquestioned, eco-friendliness.

Additional Resources

• Silestone at 2010 Winter Olympics

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