Help Us Bring Urban Lumber Back Home!

The term ‘urban lumber’ refers to lumber made from trees that grew in the city. Here in Milwaukee, roughly 4,000 trees are taken down every year by the City of Milwaukee that are damaged, diseased, or dead. That’s not including private tree services and school districts that remove trees due to storm damage, emerald ash borer infestations and more. So, what happens to those trees, you may ask? Some are repurposed, but many are thrown into a wood chipper, then hauled away to be forgotten about in a landfill. Serving no purpose at all.

Enter Reflo and our Urban Wood Initiative!

We are partnering with local tree services and local school districts in an attempt to divert the flow of urban lumber to our workshop instead of the landfill. This lumber can then be used on nearly every project we take part in, especially our Outdoor Discovery Carts! The amount of wood from a single processed log can replace almost 50% of the store-bought lumber originally used - which is a massive win for the aesthetics of the cart, AND it lowers the environmental impact of the build by avoiding as much commercial box store lumber as possible.

Why Does Reflo Care So Much About This?

Here at Reflo, we aspire to make the outdoors accessible to students from all walks of life - and one of our best methods for doing so is to create an easy way for teachers to bring not only their students, but a host of activities outside so they can teach in nature.

Outdoor Discovery Carts serve this purpose - they are mobile, durable, and handy storage devices that can carry all the tools a teacher would need to create immersive and engaging lessons for their students in the outdoors!