Guest Blogger: Why you Need to Green your Furniture

Guest Blogger #95, Entry #551, June 10, 2011

When purchasing furniture – what are your requirements? Is it only for it to look good and be affordable? If you say it should be sustainable too, than you are on the right track!

See how to go “green” with your furniture

Guest Blogger, Terry explains how to choose furniture that will help your home stay ‘green’ and help the environment at the same time.

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If you are like most of us, you don’t often buy furniture, but when you do you want it to last, and now – as global warming raises it ugly head on the political and climate scene – you also want it to be sustainable.

In fact this (sustainable furniture) is the one requirement most often heard nowadays when furniture buyers talk about shopping for that new dining room table, computer desk or sofa.

Having learned the lesson of the “oughts” – the flagrantly wasteful consumerist years from the beginning of the millennium to the recession of 2008 – many buyers no longer want merely cheap. They want it guilt-free, which means a lot of different things to different people, though the underlying message is always sustainability.

This means furniture that uses real wood, but always in a sustainable fashion. That is, hardwood trees grown (in North America or the rainforest) and harvested – and replaced – with an eye toward durable furniture; the kind grandma and grandpa used to take such pride in.

Engineered wood, with its volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from glues, fixatives and sealants, comes off a poor second when compared to the real thing. And even though there is no VOC-free durable finish, today’s finest real-wood finishes are low in odors and equally low in upkeep.

Of course, the first step to purchasing new furniture should be looking into buying gently used furniture, from an antique store, perhaps, or even a high-quality thrift store, and cleaning it up to create your own “instant heirloom.”

But sometimes that isn’t possible. A couple who has spent forty years with the same dining set may not be overjoyed at the idea of another used set. In that case, by all means go new. Just be sure that your purchase meets the definition of sustainable – something created to meet your needs today without taking away from the potential for tomorrow’s consumers – your grandchildren – to also meet their needs.

This sustainability quotient also includes sustainable fillings and coverings, like real latex foam (not petroleum-based), organic fabrics like cotton, linen and wool, or even products and fabrics made from soy (foam and fabric), bamboo (fabrics) and wood pulp.

This latter, called Tencel, has a wonderfully rough and durable texture like the old-fashioned, tight-weave burlap called jute in which we used to buy cornmeal and flour. And don’t forget flax fabrics, or hemp, which can’t be planted in the U.S., though imported fabrics pass muster.

Even if your furniture fabrics are cotton, linen or wool, don’t forget to look for the Fair Trade label, meaning the producers of the raw material – the actual farmers in the field, or weavers in the factory – got a fair wage for their efforts.

If you want the very best in sustainable, choose bamboo, which grows rapidly in poor soil without chemicals, so it doesn’t displace food crops, is 100-percent biodegradable, naturally antibacterial, and produces a silky knit similar to jersey.

What else? “Interesting” furniture is nice, attracts lots of attention and gets people talking, but for the long haul choose pieces that adapt to your changing lifestyle and choices. You will be a lot happier in the long run, as will your pocketbook.

Terry is a content manager for an online furniture store that sells really nice platform beds amongst other quality pieces.

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