SINGAPORE – Anyone who experiences a twinge of remorse every time a big tree is cut down will be glad to know that a few of these trees will get a new lease of life – as furniture.

Home-grown furniture-maker Roger&Sons, for instance, managed to upcycle two trees from a site that was going to be redeveloped. It turned them into more than 50 pieces of furniture, including benches, tables and stools.

There are about seven million trees in Singapore.

The National Parks Board (NParks) manages around six million trees, including two million urban trees along roads, in parks and gardens, and on state land. If a diseased tree has to be cut down, a landscape company will be engaged to do the job.

 Mr Oh Cheow Sheng, NParks group director (streetscape), says: “Under NParks’ tree management programme, NParks contractors generally recycle nearly all horticultural waste from tree pruning or removal, such as cut branches, which may be chipped into wood chips for use as mulch.

“For large branches and foliage that cannot be chipped, they may be transported back to the contractors’ nurseries for in-house wood chipping or to third-party companies for disposal. NParks also keeps some of the felled logs and recycles them into sculptures or park furniture.”

Some local sawmills and timber trading companies also take the logs.

At Tat Hin Timber, two to three lorries from landscape companies, each carrying between two and seven felled trees, turn up at the sawmill every day.

And it is from these sawmills that local timber, which is used to make local furniture, comes.

Besides Roger&Sons, there are several other firms which make sustainable furniture from locally felled trees.

Here are some to check out if you want furniture that is made and grown in Singapore.

Roger&Sons