Landfill Furniture: Part 2

I promised to update you as I get more information. Though all of the data are public domain the pieces have to ferreted out and put together. My friend Alfred and I continue to try to assimilate all of this. The numbers are large and these findings I report today are only preliminary. What I have today is another glimpse of the bigger picture.

Between 1960 and 2008 the population of the United States has grown 69%. The number of households has increased 94% in the same time due to each household being statistically smaller. The amount of upholstered furniture we are throwing away into landfills has increased six times from the 1960 figures to those of 2008. Though the numbers have increased each decade the real jump occurred in the 1980’s and has climbed since then.

There are some assumptions that can be made. 1) In the 1960’s the furniture thrown away had probably already lasted well over twenty years so the quantity tossed out was less. At that time the furniture made was mostly solid wood or, at least, plywood. The construction techniques commonly included multiple and frequent use of corner blocks, mortise and tenon connecting joints and wood glue. People at that time demanded quality. 2) In the mid 1980’s several of the furniture factories moved from the Great Lakes area and the Carolinas to Mississippi and Texas. It was the beginning of trying to make furniture for less. The country had a mind set of deserving the best for less. It was in this decade and into the next that the demand for lower prices pushed furniture companies “off shore” to take advantage of cheaper labor. At the same time the quality of materials dropped. Particle board and MDF replaced solid wood and plywood as the norm because it was cheaper. Corner blocks, mortise and tenon as strengthening construction techniques took longer. Time was money. The older glue was substituted with hot glue because it was faster. It didn’t really matter if it was more brittle and would not last as long. The change was that people accepted the lesser quality and the much shorter life span of the furniture as unobjectionable and the price you pay for being trendy.

We are continuing to gather information and run the numbers. What we have thus far is is staggering and hard to get our minds around. Please stay tuned. We are gathering and refining more information.

The Health Dangers in Your Mattress

Last fall I decided to seriously look into carrying mattresses in my store. As with every line I bring in, I researched what was available. I looked into quality and price point, how they were made and what they were made of. In the trade show I lay down on about ten different mattress brands that had made the first cut. I quizzed reps and read their information. But what really was the eye opener and the deciding factor was the fire retardant story.

The federal legislators passed a law that went into effect in 2007. It was well intended “feel good” legislation that would save us from ourselves and protect us from burning in our beds. All mattresses sold in the U.S. from that time, have to pass a 70 second, two foot wide blow torch of 2000 degrees. That put the mattress manufactures in a real problem solving bind. If they couldn’t pass the test they couldn’t sell mattresses and stay in business! What came out of that is a real toxic nightmare.

The common fire retardant chemicals used are: Antimony trioxide (acutely toxic and cancer causing), Boric Acid (insecticide and rat poison), Ammonium Polyphosphate (a fertilizer that breaks down into ammonia), Melamine (recently in the news- China made pet food), Formaldehyde (carcinogen and can cause blindness), Polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC suspect in causing tumors), fiberglass and silica glass. Many of these chemicals have been proven to leach from the mattress, even through vinyl mattress covers, and be absorbed by our skin. The silica can be inhaled into our lungs as we sleep. This lovely bit of information is not conducive to sweet dreams.

There are no labeling requirements with this law. The mattresses simply must pass the test. So the stores are not required to tell the consumer what is in the mattress and can, in fact, deny having chemicals in their mattresses. I have heard statements such as, “Our mattresses pass the test because: they have Kevlar (that is just a strong thread), or wool which is naturally flame resistant (wool burns at 600 degrees, the test was 2000 degrees), or rayon (has silica, PVDC and phosphates or antimony).” There are other stories but I think you get the idea. In order to pass the test these chemicals are sprayed on the foam or the chemicals are woven into the cloth in the mattress. It is not just a sickening thought. People are really getting sick. Rashes, headaches, sore throats, bronchitis and coughing are just the start. Not everybody is as affected the same. Some people are more sensitive than others and some have weaker immune systems but it is a really nasty scenario.

What I would recommend is that you find a mattress company that, with a doctors prescription, will make you a fire retardant free mattress. There are a few mattress companies that will. The company that I carry will do that but they also give you another option. Instead of having the fire retardant chemicals sprayed on the foam they embedded a removable barrier cloth. What I mean is that there is a zipper that gives you access to the inside of the mattress. The barrier cloth, under the mattress cover, also has a zipper so you can unzip the barrier cloth and remove it from your mattress. Voila´! The chemicals are gone!

So I caution you, please be aware and choose your mattress carefully. After all, you spend a third of your life there. Be healthy.

The Landfill Issue: part one

A friend, Alfred Neiderman, and I have been looking into the amount of furniture that is thrown away into landfills each year. It was something I started researching a little over a year ago when I was gathering facts for an informational DVD on what is “sustainable furniture”. As I get more information I will post it here.

I live in a pretty green minded community yet I learned from a friend of mine, who ran the local 1-800-Got Junk franchise that 8 to 13 sofas went into our landfill each day it was open. That number really blew my mind. Wow! Then I started to mathematically expand the information to figure out what that meant in all of the U.S. The estimated number of sofas that get dumped into landfills in the U.S. each year is 3,927,271. Now if that is not horrible enough let me reiterate: This is only the number of sofas tossed. It does not count chairs, desks or cabinets.

I have mentioned before, in other blog entries, that there are a lot of chemicals that are showing up in our ground water. This number contributes to that problem. There are other facets to this. Why are so many sofas going to the dump? 1) There are many that are so poorly made that they can not be fixed. They are junk. 2) There are accidents, such as cats peeing on the furniture or floods/hurricanes, that make the piece unusable. 3) There are people that get tired of their stuff and simply toss it. Many reasons and I have only listed the highlights. I think number one and three are the most frequent. Basically this is not only wasteful but not really healthy for us or our environment.

There is more to this. We are continuing our research to nail down the statistics. The strange thing is that, as far as I know, we are basically the only people really looking at this in terms of the United States. England is looking into it and there are some isolated municipalities that are concerned with their own dumped furniture numbers. We need to ask ourselves: 1) How much money are we wasting by buying throw away goods? 2) How is it impacting our local and world environment? 3) How is it impacting our country’s economy by buying throw away goods and where are those items made?

If you have answers to any of these questions or comments, please jump into the conversation.

An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama,

You have asked for input and suggestions from small business owners. I have responded by writing four different letters to you from December to April. This time I am to writing an open letter and putting it in my blog. At least I will know that it will be read by someone. I am not sure about the other four.

The Economy:
As we see it there are a complex set of problems that you are well aware of. With all of the bad news, consumers are not spending. This is complicated with the policies that the banks have instituted. First they sent out tons of credit cards to the consumers. Then they raised the fees and interest rates on those cards to loan shark levels making it more difficult for the consumer to pay off the cards. When the cards were not paid off quickly the consumers credit scores were lowered. Now it is difficult for people to successfully apply for a loan because their score indicates that they are not a good risk.

Businesses have suffered with the drop in spending. Lines of Credit have been tightened or diminished. Small businesses are struggling to pay their rent and overhead. New small businesses are having difficulty finding places they can afford to rent. Commercial buildings are going vacant because the building owners have based the rent on an amortized amount from their mortgages, interest rates and taxes. Then there are the freight costs and the other energy costs with heating and power. Health care costs are also part of the equation. Have I missed anything?

You are working to get credit card regulation reform and a credit card bill of rights. That is phenomenally important. Please do not let the banking institutions water down that resolve. This one area, if corrected, will greatly improve the odds of people keeping their homes, their jobs and businesses. Working on the health care mess is the other big piece because it increases the cost of everything.

Energy:
I know of a man in Virginia who holds a patent on a terrific alternative energy generating system. It uses a waste product that we have an abundance of, yet the energy is clean. He is having difficulty obtaining sufficient funds to build the first plant.

MIT is working on a new form of battery that will be revolutionary and particularly useful with things like wind, geothermal and solar power.

Anyway, the point is, will there be ways of getting money for projects like these? It is American ingenuity at it’s best. I would love to see the power plant project get off the ground and bring jobs. I would also like to see our country get back on its feet and show our citizens and the world that we can be innovative and do great things.

Let me make myself perfectly clear. We are not asking for a handout. We are doing absolutely everything we can, to not only survive but to be vibrant, cutting edge businesses. Small business owners are an intrepid bunch. We need to be. We can not fix some of the problems that ail our country and economy. The lines of communication need to run both ways. We want to be heard….. and we want to help.

Philosophical Differences in Shopping Viewpoints

Over the Easter weekend I had a chance to visit with family and I came ‘smack’ up against the “disposable shopper”. I have met this type of shopper in my store many times. I also have a couple of them in my family. I understand their outlook. They are trying to get the best “something” for less money. With the economy what it is today, in their eyes, that shopping philosophy makes more sense than ever. For the most part, this type of shopper is not going to ever see my view point. Usually I let it go but I can’t begin to tell you how much that way of thinking strikes me as wrong.

You are a bargain shopper. You go to Acme Store X or perhaps to “Craig’s List”. You are looking for “Item Y” (You need to fill in the blank here. It can be a washer, a shirt or a chair. Whatever.) You search out the cheapest one you can find, that seems to meet your criteria, and buy it. After a short time span it breaks or quits or perhaps it makes you sick and you need to replace it. You go back to your favorite bargain source and repeat.

This sets up a series of situations. 1)Every time you replace you are using more materials or resources. More metal for that washer, more fabric for that shirt or wood for the chair. 2) Everytime you replace you have to sell or some way dispose of what is broken. What happens to the rejected piece? How much can it be fixed or does it just end up in the landfills, leaching into our ground water. As it is our drinking water has growing amounts of formaldehyde, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals from things we have thrown away. 3) Everytime you throw away and replace you are spending more money. Yes, the amount is less than if you bought new and well made. That is a fact but so is the fact that the duration that the well made piece lasts versus the added totals of all of the cheap pieces, makes it not a ‘bargain’.

I know that both of my relatives who are “bargain hunters” and “disposable shoppers” think that they are smart to do what they do. They are proud of what they can save and they are happy because they can change the item frequently. Like I say, it is a philosophical difference. I, in turn, see it as very wasteful to change your furniture every five years or to wear something a few times and throw it away because you didn’t buy well made. It bugs me that more and more “stuff” is purchased and thrown away every year. It irritates me that sane people can think that is reasonable to drive 90 miles, or fly across the country, to a big city, to go to a “SALE” that had the same or similar stuff as their own city. What are they saving?? Certainly not gas!

So, as I write this, I have to admit that we will never agree on these points. Everybody is different. Each thinks they are right. (Visualize me shrugging.) You decide.

“Why Pay More.. Shop for Less”

“Why Pay More When You Can Buy For Less?”
When did we start this mentality? Oh, I understand finding that real gem of a deal. They do occur. But usually if it seems to good to be true (are you hearing your mother’s voice yet?)… then it is.

Our business is furniture. One side of it is in custom building and restoration and the other is retail. Right now we are restoring a mahogany dining set that is over 100 years old. Boy, is it going to look beautiful when it is done! The interesting thing is how well it is made. It has held up all of these years because of the craftsmanship. Fast forward to how a lot of the furniture is made today. Think about it. When did we start settling for “planned obsolescence” furniture?

Okay, I get budgets. You don’t have to buy the $15,000 dining set. Do the research. Ask the questions. Inform yourself and buy the best made you can possibly afford. What do you really save, if you buy a “bargain” that starts having major issues within a few years? Let’s move this from furniture.

When you shop for clothes do you check out the seams and hems to see how well it was made? When you are thinking about buying a computer do you grab the first you see in your price range or do you ask about memory, processing speed, software and peripherals? Looking for a good used car? Do you have a mechanic, you trust, look at it and go for a test drive? I will bet that you do a lot of these things when buying a used car, a computer or shopping for clothes. This is because you have taught yourself what to look for.

In this age of little truth in advertising and “secret surprises” inside your furniture, like particle board and “visually enhanced” finishes, doesn’t it behoove you to study up a bit? A surprise is good when you wait for birth to learn of the gender of your baby. It is not good when you pay a bunch of hard earned cash for something that will collapse when Uncle Bill sits on it.

The worth of our money will mean even more to us after we make it through this economic hole. I suggest that we become savvy on how we use it.

Where did your furniture come from?

When I set up this blog I promised you a discussion concerning the thread between sustainability and economics. Here we go.

A friend sent me an article by Tom Watson writing for Around the House Public Arts:
(http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/aroundthehouse/arts.artsmain?action=sectionIndex&sid=14)

He is in the right direction with his article but there are points where his facts are not accurate. He states that demands of imported furniture have soared by 78% from 2000-2006. It isn’t that the demand has increased but that the amount of furniture made off shore has increased. So when people buy furniture, it is 78% more likely that they are buying imported furniture. Mr. Watson’s dates are significant. Do you remember the WTO riots in Seattle in the fall of 1999? WTO went into effect and furniture as well as other goods started being made in foreign countries. It kept the cost down for consumers. Soon domestic companies couldn’t compete with products being made off shore and they moved their manufacturing also. Now we import most of the goods we buy. It is a trade imbalance.

Mr. Watson moves on to talk about being careful to buy furniture that is made of FSC lumber (Forest Stewardship Council certified). This is a good practice. You need to ask because the stamp, most likely, will not be present. Most manufactures, who build “green”, will tell you that the “chain of custody” paperwork is the proof. When they buy the lumber it may be stamped with the FSC tree/check logo but by the time the lumber is cut, shaped and sanded for finishing the logo is gone. We make custom furniture and our “chain of custody” lumber comes for Eden Saw in Port Townsend, WA who are FSC certified.

He brings up Ikea not wanting any stamp but theirs on the product. Please read this article from the Washington Post. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/31/AR2007033101287.html) In 2007 Ikea was only 4% compliant and was being made in China with mostly illegal timber. Two years have passed and they’re working to improve their percentage but have stated that it would raise their costs to put enough personnel, on the ground, tracking the “chain of custody” on all of the timber.

Mr. Watson’s final point is that custom furniture and FSC wood can be more expensive. That is true. Not because it is “green” but because of labor costs. Most FSC certified furniture is made domestically. Labor costs include health care and at least minimum wage. We can’t compete with a less-than-a-dollar-a-day wage. That is why so many companies moved their operations to other countries.

Additional articles pertaining to knowing where materials come from: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/special-report-china-in-africa.html

Shades of Grey

Sustainability and the economy bump against each other at so many different levels. One of the stories that really reached me was a family that lived on the edge of the rainforest in Brazil. They were very poor and to make a living the man was contracted to provide charcoal for the steel foundries in the western world. His job was to cut down trees and bake them in large dome shaped ovens to reduce them to charcoal for which he was paid. That is how he and his family survived. To him there was not an ethical question or a concern about global warming. It was simply what he could do and get paid. One day the government sent their Environmental Police into the area to stop illegal logging. They took the chain saw and destroyed the kilns.

Were the Environmental Police correct in what they did. Yes, in one way. We need to protect the rainforest and our global climate and to do that destructive acts need to stop. But they also destroyed a family’s way to survive.

This is just one story. It could have been about the children “employed” in the sweat shops that make your household goods or your clothing. Do they need the jobs to survive. You bet they do! Are they being exploited so we can have something at a sale price? Yes.

The reason I am telling you this is to emphasize that things are not always black and white but are, in reality, many shades of grey. If that subsistence “farmer” was doing that out of greed and he really had enough money to live and put his children through college, that would be one thing. A lot of “crimes” against the environment happen by poverty being exploited.

What can we do? Be aware that there may be other parts to a story. If you wish, give to organizations like ”Heifer International” which give people the means to make a living to pull themselves out of poverty. Also please, and this will be a recurring theme, think about what you buy. Where did it come from? Who made it? I urge you to ask questions and to think. Buy whatever you decide but purchase it with awareness.

Introduction

 

Most people weigh all of their decisions against their wallet. This economy hasn’t done anything to change that and in fact it has strengthened the practice. So when I talk to customers about buying eco-friendly products, I had better have some monetary reasons in my discussion points. The argument; “It is the right thing to do” or “We need to save the rain forests and polar bears” may be a valid rationalization but it often will not wash when people are concerned about their “bottom line”.

The two strongest reasons to buy “green” that I talk about in my store are the health of the home environment and the sustainability aspect of “green” which saves the purchaser money over the long term. 

There are consumers that are either chemically sensitive or are concerned about the amount of chemicals that are in our environment and being absorbed by our bodies. They have heard enough on the news to be fearful. It is my job to do research on the products I carry. It is my commitment to my customers and my responsibility.

The sustainability issue is a monetarily practical issue but it also touches a larger pollution concern. If you buy the bargain sofa for $500 it will be easy on your budget now. The down side is that it won’t last more that five years and will need to be replaced. So figure that in the minimum 20 years it takes to raise a family you will replace that sofa four times. With normal inflation those sofas will probably not all be $500 so the total replacement costs of having a sofa is likely to at least be $2700. The pollution factors in with what you do with those four sofas when you replace them. Can they be recycled to a charity or a person in need or are they thrown away into a landfill and are deteriorating into the ground water?

The thread of these blog pieces is to explore how intertwined our desires to go “eco” and our monetary concerns balance with each other at all different levels. Join the discussion.