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How to identify and source safe, nontoxic, green, and organic furniture for your home and office that is budget conscious and also practical for households with children.
I’ve written several articles in the past about the importance of sourcing nontoxic mattresses and pillows to facilitate deep, sound sleep habits. But what about furniture?
Most of us sit quite a bit and even sleep on the couch occasionally (you know, zonking out during a boring Netflix selection).
Considering the purchase of organic furniture when budgeting for home furnishing is nearly as important a decision.
Searching for Safe Furniture
One person grappling with this decision recently emailed me about it to ask for input. Kyra writes:
I love your blog! I have a suggestion for one…searched your site and don’t think you ever talked about it before– I am considering updating my living room couches, but I’ve read that most furniture is sprayed with all kinds of chemicals. Since our family room is where my family spends a ton of time (playing, napping, snuggling, snacking), I want to buy something non-toxic. Is that possible? Where and how do I find furniture that isn’t full of chemicals, fire retardants and formaldehyde?
Can you give us some tips on several brands/companies or stores and what to look for, please? What did you purchase for your family? Your article about mattresses was great so I was hoping you have helpful tips for furniture too (even though, if I remember correctly, you only recommended one particular brand). Thank you for providing us with such valuable information to keep us healthy!
This is a great question. Unfortunately, I have not discovered clear-cut answers especially if you are furnishing your home on a budget.
My husband and I have never placed much importance on the need for fancy decorating in our home (primarily because my husband really doesn’t care one way or another, and I am an avowed minimalist in that department). However, we have always managed to procure quality, nontoxic furniture despite spending very little.
Below is the strategy we have employed during our 25 years together. It has served to keep the furniture we buy affordable, green, and as organic as possible.
Perhaps it might help give you some ideas too. First, let’s go over what’s available on the market currently and how it is or isn’t an option for those seeking a chemical-free living environment.
Toxins in Conventional Furniture
Before we talk about solutions, let’s identify the problem with conventional furniture today. This includes dormitory furniture used in most colleges and boarding schools. The health issues are primarily three-fold:
- The foam in the cushions is made of petroleum-based polyurethane, a highly flammable product. To rectify this, toxic, cancer-causing flame retardants are added. This synthetic foam in the cushions breaks down over time. The result is dust containing fire retardant chemicals polluting the indoor air which everyone breaths. These chemicals have become ubiquitous in the environment. They are found in wildlife tissue samples (both land and sea), breastmilk and other human body fluids. (1)
- The wood used in typical furniture products is not solid. It is comprised of particleboard. Particleboard manufacture involves the use of formaldehyde. This chemical has been identified as a known carcinogen by the National Toxicology Program. (2)
- The half-life of formaldehyde outgassing from particleboard is about one year. Heat makes it outgas faster. However, long term studies indicate that significant outgassing continues for at least 5 years and possibly longer. (3)
- Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from adhesives, dyes, and/or Scotchgard, which carries the unique risk of perfluorochemicals. The EPA says that these VOCs pollute indoor air by outgassing. (4)
Safe Bed is the MOST Important Purchase
For a health-conscious consumer seeking to furnish the home environment with nontoxic items, conventional furniture is quite simply a non-starter. Don’t forget – this includes the mattress you sleep on all night long!
Fortunately, there are nontoxic mattresses on the market that are very affordable and last as long or longer than conventional toxic ones (find healthy mattress brands I’ve vetted here).
Organic Furniture: Is There Really Such a Thing?
While finding a nontoxic mattress is getting easier and affordable today, the same cannot be said for organic furniture!
A few brands boast organic cotton upholstery, but watch out for the materials underneath! There is a lot of greenwashing going on in the furniture industry. A savvy consumer needs to be on high alert so as not to get scammed by clever marketing.
For example, the mainstream furniture manufacturers Pottery Barn and Ikea have a line of eco-friendly furniture which is clearly a step up from conventional toxic furniture of the Rooms-to-Go variety. This is a positive trend for sure!
However, I personally would not buy anything in these lines. Why? While the furniture is fire retardant-free and made of sustainably produced materials and perhaps even organic cotton, it is still a toxic choice from a health perspective.
For example, the recycled, FSC-certified wood used in the Pottery Barn line still has the potential to outgas formaldehyde and other chemicals since it can be made from all or a mix of post-consumer waste and VOC containing adhesives and upholstery dyes.
A more intimate example of this consumer trap is recycled toilet paper. While environmentally friendly, this is a toxic choice for the consumer.
In other words, an environmentally friendly, green product is not necessarily a nontoxic and healthy choice for your family!
Selection and Affordability
Let’s say you’ve managed to find organic furniture that delivers what is claimed. There are a few brands out there that are flame-retardant-free, fully recyclable, and use solid wood frames, certified organic textiles, and water-based adhesives.
This furniture brand is a good option to consider.
Unfortunately, an option like this is more expensive than conventional choices.
With conventional furniture a sketchy choice and organic furniture expensive, what is a health-conscious consumer to do? Let’s dig deeper.
What About Leather?
Some of you may have considered leather or faux leather furniture as an option to reduce toxins.
First off, let’s scratch faux leather off the list right away. Faux leather is made from a fabric base. This base is chemically treated with wax, VOC emitting dye, or polyurethane to achieve the desired color and texture. No thanks.
Real leather undergoes a tanning process that involves many carcinogenic chemicals and solvents that would make any environmentalist cringe. The process is so toxic to both the environment and the workers, in fact, that the EPA and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have closed most USA tanneries. (5)
At one time (believe it or not), Boston was a world leader in the production of leather goods, but so many pollutants were dumped into rivers and streams that the dirty water runoff kicked off an environmental backlash from consumers.
As for the interior components of a leather couch, there would be little difference from upholstered conventional furniture.
Fire retardant foam and cheap, formaldehyde emitting particleboard are favored over a safer solid hardwood frame. Watch out for “engineered hardwood” too which uses plywood construction.
All plywood contains formaldehyde glues which outgas over time.
Some leather furniture makers use hypo-allergenic foams and true hardwood frames, but the leather tanning process is still a thorny issue for those that are chemically sensitive.
How to Ensure Your Furniture is Safe
If all of this information has you worried about furniture that was purchased before you started greening your lifestyle and improving your diet, take heart. There are some things you can do now to make sure your existing furniture is safe for your family.
Test Foam for Fire Retardants
Duke University’s Superfund Research Center is assisting consumers by offering foam testing services. You simply send in a small sample of the foam from your sofas, couches, or chairs.
The research team is testing foams to examine how badly fire retardant chemicals continue to off-gas over time. (6)
Stop the Outgassing of Formaldehyde
Another option is to purchase Safecoat Safe Seal.
This unique product is applied to particleboard to block the off-gassing of formaldehyde from processed wood products such as plywood, particleboard, and pressed wood.
It is especially practical to use on tables and the frames of sofas, couches, and chairs that are not composed of solid wood.
How to Source Nontoxic Furnishings
If at this point you feel discouraged or your head is spinning, take a deep breath. You can do what my husband and I have done for 25 years to keep things simple, safe, and affordable.
Buy. Used. Furniture.
Back when we bought our house in 1993, nontoxic furniture items didn’t exist and even if they did, we couldn’t afford them. So we developed a habit of scouring estate sales, consignment and antique shops, and even garage sales for quality furniture that was made with solid wood and/or old enough (5+ years) where any outgassing issues were long gone.
Not only does this strategy ensure a safe living environment, but it also saves a ton of money and is kind of a fun hobby too.
Probably the best example of this approach is the solid oak dining table we have that I am typing at right now. We got it for a song and have never had to worry that we were breathing formaldehyde fumes with every meal we ate there as a family.
What strategies have you employed over the years to source nontoxic, organic furniture?
(1) How Dangerous is Your Couch?
(2) Report on the Carcinogenicity of Formaldehyde
(3) Long-Term Formaldehyde Emissions from Medium-Density Fiberboard in a Full-Scale Experimental Room: Emission Characteristics and the Effects of Temperature and Humidity
(4) Coming Clean. Did 3M and DuPont ignore evidence of health risks?
(5) Chicago’s Last Tannery
(6) Duke University. What’s in My Foam?
We thought that we found such an amazing sofa and chair and 1/2 -here I immediately started to feel sick around it and could smell something but couldn’t quite figure it out -was it a candle, Febreze, carpet powder? I finally asked the seller and he said his wife burns candles all the time. Even after having the furniture professionally cleaned the smell was right back. I’m super sensitive -had to sell -lost a ton of money but didn’t care. So….buying used isn’t always the greatest either -even with wood products we’ve had issues with varnish smell, etc.
While used furniture actually seems like the smart choice here, it’s actually just as dangerous. Flame retardants aren’t manufactured to last as long as our furniture can and breaks down over time becoming increasingly toxic. Unless your home is entirely decorated with natural, untreated wood, I’m sad to say that through my research, I’ve never found an affordable option for nontoxic furniture. I hope to be proven wrong, but this has been my experience so far.
It’s not just as dangerous if you get it old enough where flame retardants weren’t used! That’s what we did.
We bought pine furniture from Ikea in 2003 and it is solid wood. I don’t think they make the items anymore. However I have a glass Hemnes cabinet we bought a couple years ago that is solid pine. It does not smell one iota.
Not all off-gassing chemicals have a smell.
I buy used furniture too. I picked up some mid-range MCM furniture (Drexel Meridian from mid-1960s) a week ago that had been sitting in an empty house for awhile. Close to the surface (lacquered exterior) it gives off a sharp old-ish-wood-and-something-else- smell that I can’t really describe.
I’m worried whatever it’s giving off may be harmful. I had this furniture in my closed bedroom for a night. I think I could smell it in the closed room after awhile, and I think my throat and eyes were mildly irritated in the morning (I guess there is a small chance it’s psychosomatic).
What is the likelihood that the smell from this furniture of this age is a health issue? Obviously it’s not typical off-gassing as encountered with new furniture. Could the lacquer be deteriorating and releasing the smell? Or perhaps the resins holding the wood layers together are working their way through the top layer of laminate?
Is there anything I can do about it, short of stripping and refinishing?
Is it possible that having moved this furniture out of an empty house into one that is occupied and climate-controlled that whatever process is causing this, might abate or reverse itself?
I’m with you. The thought of people and pets’ butts, sweat, vomit, dander, dustmites, bedbugs, and who knows what else, is as disgusting as toxic chemicals. After losing everything in a fire, we sat on lawn chairs, slept on air mattresses (which are probably toxic as well, but we covered them with layers of sheets), and ate out most of the time. I’m thinking that’s the answer!
I agree with your concerns. I would never buy used furniture because you have no idea what it’s been through. I had all solid oak dining table, hutch, chairs, bedroom dresser and stands. Gently used, they appeared to be in immaculate condition. However, we live in the humid Midwest, and despite air conditioning and an air purifier, I was horrified to discover the furniture had black spore mold growing from the inside out. The owner of the solid oak furniture store I bought from said the least bit of moisture can quickly breed mold. I gently cleaned it with bleach water as recommended, but I never did feel right donating the furniture, much less reselling it. While moving, we learned a bookshelf in our den had a mouse nest underneath it. We had no clue and had never seen any evidence prior. The bottom line is – I would never recommend buying used items unless you are absolutely certain you know it’s history.
Actually, the fire retardants not v.o.c. s is what would work its out and into household dust. I would also be concerned with people who live in old and poorly taken care of houses with lead paint which dusts into air from friction surfaces like windows and doors onto a couch which cannot be washed. I’d sooner take some voc offgassing over potential for neurotoxcity. Not to mention potential for older furniture to contain lead itself
My understanding is that Ikea meets the strictest emission standards in the world. I know they aren’t VOC free, but what about their solid wood furniture, like a bed frame or kitchen table? Would that pose any toxicity issue? Thanks!
I don’t know of any IKEA furniture that is solid wood.
I dont see how this would be “Nontoxic furniture on a budget” when your mattresses you are selling are over FOUR thousand dollars! Really?
Which ones? Some of the models are significantly less than that! Not sure which you are referring to.
We just remediated our house of mold. Many homes have mold. I wouldn’t want to buy a couch that was in a moldy house. What else do you suggest besides buying used furniture, like a couch?