If you really want to be a piano conservationist and truly re-cycle… Then help our environment, rebuild, restore or purchase an older American piano. They can be re-cycled to be like new. Think of how much waste is going into the landfill. You will be helping the rain forests and tress. It takes a lot of wood, many trees, metal, Ivory, plastic and hardware to build one of these instruments. You think plastic bottles take a lot of room? Ever see how big a seven foot concert grand is? Take a guess at how many trees and precious resources it took to build it and how much landfill space it takes!
Some of the woods, maple, rock maple, beech, oak, cherry, solid spruce to name a few. The list of Rare veneers is too long. (many of them extinct or extremely expensive).
Other materials:
- Plate bolts, screws many of them solid brass and chrome
- Solid brass for the top hinges and big hinge, pedals and rods
- Felts for the hammers, dampers, key bushings , damper bushings and finish trim
- Wood that the keys are made of
- Ivory that an Elephant died for! will be discarded.
There are about 12,000 parts in a piano! New pianos of today will take more trees of inferior quality (fast grown), and more metal etc. Now with plastic finishes, once crack they cannot be restored again. They will not be the heirloom quality pianos of yesteryear, nor will they last anywhere near as long