Green Product Category: Furniture & Furnishings

The introduction of furnishings that off-gas hazardous chemicals can undo all the care given to using “clean” building materials. Furniture and furnishings incorporate many separate products and all of the issues that go with them. As a result, they can be a significant source of IAQ problems—coming from binders in wood composites such as particleboard, from finishes used on the products, from flame retardants used in foam cushions, and from adhesives used to assemble the products.

Those items incorporating fabric, such as upholstered furniture and workstations, can also collect dirt and airborne contaminants, releasing them later.

Some issues to consider:

• Most of the plastic laminates used on inexpensive furniture are made from phenolic resins. These compounds are somewhat toxic to work with but relatively stable—and they’re easy to keep clean after manufacture.
• Hardwoods—especially tropical hardwoods—used in furniture manufacture should be third-party certified according to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards to ensure that they were harvested in an environmentally responsible manner. FSC certification involves third-party evaluation and monitoring of sustainable forestry practices.
• Most fabrics used on commercial furniture and workstations are primarily polyester. Wool is a durable and attractive natural alternative, though it is sometimes treated with toxic mothproofing agents. The polyurethane foam padding used in furniture generally contains polybrominated diphenol ethers (PBDEs), which are bioaccumulating relatives of PCBs. These flame retardants are released into the building as the foam padding ages.
• Furniture should be as simple as possible, with a minimum of different materials, and it should be assembled with mechanical fasteners rather than adhesives to facilitate end-of-life recycling.
• Some innovative designers have produced lines of furniture made from various recycled materials and with high recyclability.