I have mixed feelings about ecofriendliness: I’m worried that it’s fundamentally human-hostile. However many foreign holidays we forgo, plastic carrier bags we refrain from using and dolphins we fail to eat, we can never score a perfect 10. The great unspoken premise of the green movement is that the world would be better off all round if you and I hadn’t been born.

We may never be truly green, but every little bit helps. And when it comes to home furnishings, it’s easy, these days, to be both stylish and sustainable. Indeed, some furnishings are so inexpensive that if you buy them and subsequently hate the look, you can simply tip the lot into landfill and start over. Kidding. Really, I was kidding.

The most inspired green furnishings combine reused materials and quirky design flair, producing something new and exciting. Ting London makes brilliantly coloured cushions, cube stools and hammocks from discarded seat belts. A lime cube (42cm x 42cm x 42cm) costs £150, a turquoise cushion (38cm x 38cm) is £40 and the “Ting Sling” hammock is £200 (020 7751 4424, tinglondon.com ).

Massey & Rogers makes a pretty, muted lamp shade, woven from out- of-date maps of eastern Europe (H35.5cm x 40.5cm diameter, £140; 07913 913060, masseyandrogers.co.uk). Richard Liddle’s wonderful melty latticework of plastic, the RD Legs chair (RD stands for roughly drawn), is woven by hand from recycled domestic plastic waste. As well as regulation green, this statement seat comes in black and mustard (86cm x 48cm x 58cm, £540; 0191 423 6247, cohda.com).

Recycled glass is my favourite ecofriendly homeware. Glass seems to gain character and liveliness with reuse, and great products can be remarkably good value. The lovely, hefty white wineglasses at Bailey’s cost £5.75 (17cm high; 01989 561931, baileyshomeandgarden.com). Spaghetti jars with a subtle green tinge, made in Spain from waste glass, cost £9 (1l capacity, 19cm x 9.7cm; 020 7739 3888, ecocentric.co.uk ). And

RE has crystal pendant lights fashioned from rescued, slightly scuffed glass chandelier drops (26cm, from £98; 01434 634567, re-found objects.com)

For a few pounds more, Madeleine Boulesteix’s chandeliers, constructed from old champagne glasses, jelly moulds and glass beads, are a fabulously idiosyncratic demonstration of the art of recycling (£650, 36cm x 70cm; 020 8835 0101, oneeco home.co.uk ).

Recycled glass paving and wall cladding are becoming more readily available, though they are still rather pricey.

Paving “stones” by Eluna are especially alluring, with recycled glass chips suspended like petals in the semitranslucent blue tiles. Standard sizes start at 10cm square (from £300 per square metre; 020 7241 7474, eluna.org.uk ). For colour and sparkle, check out Eight Inch’s Resilica kitchen counters, made of recycled waste glass and resin (from £350 per linear metre; 01273 511564, eightinch.co.uk). Aside from its environmental virtues, the material can easily be personalised. “One lady sent us boxes of red glass-ware — ornaments, bowls and jugs — she had collected from local charity shops in Bristol to include in her worktops,” says Gary Nicholson, Eight Inch’s managing director. “It was lovely for her that she had a special connection with her kitchen.”

Some of the most extravagantly decorative buys are made with recycled fabrics. The stylish antiques store Guinevere redeploys textiles to make boho-chic homewares, including cushions in French toile de jouy and kilim fabrics, backed with 19th-century French linen sheets (43cm square, from £150; 020 7736 2917, guinevere.co.uk ). The ethical

fashion firm Saricouture Opulent uses printed vintage saris to create highly patterned lamp shades (£45, base in reclaimed wood £85; 07734 443350, saricouture.com). And the French designer Frederique Morrel transforms antique tapestry, needlework and lace into upholstery for sofas, footstools, cushion covers, lamp shades and unique works of art such as My Dear, a life-size stag covered in tapestry and wearing pre-owned antlers (footstools from £415; 07880 837548, mintshop. co.uk). To see Morrel’s full range, visit frederiquemorrel.com.

By far the greenest way of decorating, of course, is to make do and mend — take old furniture, spruce it up and put it to use again. Several talented designers specialise in making over junk-shop finds. MissPrint, aka Yvonne and Rebecca Drury, are a

mother-and-daughter team who turn out a lovely line in restyled homewares. They buy second-hand tables, lamps, chests and sofas with clean, mid-century lines, then reupholster the sofas in hand-printed linens and decorate the cabinets with stickers based on their crisp, Festival of Britain-flavour wallpaper patterns. Prices range from £395 for a Nectar chair to £980 for a

customised 1950s sideboard (020 8470 7896, www.missprint.co.uk).

The makeover merchant Lou Rota remixes second-hand china and chairs with collages and decals of bugs and birds (lourota.com ). Her Floral Jack Throne is a 1920s French chair painted white, decorated with hand-cut paper flowers made from recycled magazines, then varnished (90cm x 43cm x 40cm, £345; notonthehighstreet.com).

Zoe Murphy, working from a disused pie factory in Margate, jazzes up 1950s cabinets, chairs and stools with retro prints (from £180 for a footstool or side table to £950 for a six-drawer chest of drawers; 07780 574314, zoemurphy.com). Her decorative motifs evoke the “Formica cafes” and seaside windbreakers of her home town, and the vibe is relentlessly sea-breezy and upbeat.

Murphy’s anti-consumerist motto is “Love what belongs to you” — an admirable dictum, and one that’s especially easy to follow if you’ve invested in one of her pieces.

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