So from last week’s post, you know that you want a durable, colorfast fabric that will be lovely to look at and wonderful to live with. What’s the best choice? I’m so glad you asked. You have basically two choices in fibers: natural (cotton, linen, wool, hemp, silk) or synthetic (polyester, acrylic, nylon, etc.). Many …
This week we’ll begin to talk about the fabric used in your sofa – which we (of course) think is a very complicated and important topic! One thing to remember is that there is much more fabric used in constructing an upholstered piece of furniture than just the decorative fabric that you see covering the piece – …
In my last post I explained that polyurethane foam (polyfoam) has a plethora of problems associated with it: The chemicals used to manufacture the foam have been formally identified as carcinogens; and the flame retardant chemicals added to almost all foams increase the chemical toxicity. These chemicals evaporate (VOCs) and pollute our indoor air and …
In an upholstered piece of furniture, the cushions need a filler of some kind. Before plastics, our grandparents used feathers, horsehair or wool or cotton batting. But with the advent of plastics, our lives changed. You will now commonly see polyurethane foam, synthetic or natural latex rubber and the new, highly touted soy based foam. …
Each week for the next few weeks we’ll look at the components of sofas, and discuss what makes a particular component “green” or “safe”. We hope this will help you to better understand the claims of sofa manufacturers, and enable you to decide whether you want to support their products with your dollars. We hope you don’t need …
In light of the recent Chicago Tribune series, “Playing with Fire” about the deceptive campaigns waged by manufacturers of flame retardants, it seems that with each call we get, we end up talking about flame retardants. We think that’s skewed, because flame retardants, though certainly something we wouldn’t want to live with, are not the only monsters in the …
You may have read the series published by the Chicago Tribune which began on May 7, “Playing With Fire”, in which they expose the history of fire retardants which are used in furniture in the United States. The Tribune found that: Chemicals that are used in household furnishings such as sofas and chairs to slow …
We did a post on the use of nanotechnology in the textile industry about two years ago, and new research has just settled the long-standing controversy over the mechanism by which silver nanoparticles (the most widely used nanomaterial in the world) kills bacteria. You know, all those new textiles that advertise that they’re bacteria and …
I just read the article by Lynne Peeples in Huffington Post Green, entitled “Chemistry Lessons: Living with Rachel Carson’s Legacy” which caught my eye because I’ve been reading about Merchants of Doubt, the new book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, in which they conclude that the far right in America, in its quest to …
Don’t you just love the fact that you can buy a sofa from IKEA and pay only about $800 – while at the same time bask in self righteous pride that you have acted to support your belief that you really shouldn’t trash our planet just for a piece of furniture? At least, you can try to convince yourself that …
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