Not all furniture are created equal. Your local artisan might have honest-to-goodness intentions when crafting a dining chair, but unfortunately that’s not the scenario in big-time factories that churn out products by the thousands each day. Mass production, in its quest to speed up manufacturing processes and maintain quality, usually resorts to various nefarious chemicals that wreak havoc on indoor air quality, and ultimately harm human health and the environment.
Exactly how green is this office? Let the furniture speak for themselves. (Photo from greenliving4live.com)
Some of the most common toxic chemicals lurking in our furniture include:
· formaldehyde,
· phthalates,
· naphthalene,
· triclosan,
· chlorine,
· ammonia,
· polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs),
· perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), and
· perchloroethylene (PCE)
And then there’s VOCs or volatile organic compounds, emitted by most paints, varnishes, thinners, lacquers, wood stains, cleaning supplies, and industrial-strength adhesives.
Even the humble couch can be made of toxic ingredients if we don’t examine manufacturers’ claims.
Even the humble couch—that soft and comfy throne of the house where we park our derriere after a hard day’s work—can also apparently be made of many toxic chemicals. The problem the government doesn’t have adequately regulations regarding these chemicals, in so far as some studies are still not conclusive and only suggest correlation of the chemicals with harmful effects on the human body.
Sometimes, the presence of harmful chemicals actually have good intentions behind it, as in the case of flame-retardants which are found in the said humble couch. Yes, the flame retardant is meant as a safety precaution, but studies have also shown that it leeches poison in the air over the course of its life. This rather defeats the safety purpose of the chemical, and obviously the couch’s original purpose of comfort. But it’s a fact, and so you might want to get your own couch checked for chemicals that stealthily waft behind your back.
Testing Furniture
Testing furniture and office fixtures is actually a very rigorous process that borders on the obsessive-compulsive. For what it’s worth, the testing standard for furniture systems, components and seating is the ANSI/BIFMA Furniture Standards M7.1-2011and e3-2011, Section 7.6.
First there’s the sealed mini chamber that mimics your typical indoor environment—whether that’s an office, classroom, or hospital room. The furniture in question is placed inside this chamber, and then measured for various chemicals that slowly off-gas over the course of a few hours or days. No matter how miniscule the emissions, its predicted concentrations are calculated based on factors such as building size, ventilation rate, and amount of installed material in the premises.
A particular office chair might be only slightly and negligibly toxic, but when it’s multiplied five hundred times in a tightly-sealed setting with no access to outside air, things can be a cause for concern. What about the carpet, the vinyl flooring, the laminate surfaces on the cubicles, the wall paint, etcetera? Given the fact that many of us spend 90{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} of our time indoors, we really have something to worry about.
In Defense of Indoor Air Quality
We’re at this point in time wherein green building has finally come to terms with the fact that, yes, our furniture, walls, and flooring—these supposedly innocent stuff—can drastically affect the quality of air we breathe. Thankfully, LEED v4 had taken a stand against chemicals of concern, requiring building product manufacturers to be a whole lot more transparent with their health product declarations.
Last year, the WELL Building Standard, a burgeoning standalone ratings system for determining the health effects of the interior of a building, was launched and integrated itself with LEED earlier this year. Now more than ever, the link between well-being and the built environment is being explored and established. Whether it’s in the office setting or a studio apartment, it makes sense to think twice about the furniture we’re getting.
And while the government might be slow on policing chemicals of concern, that’s where green building has done the world a huge favor. Right now though, we definitely need more transparency when it comes to testing indoor products and how they impact indoor air quality. That’s something that third-party certification bodies can sufficiently enforce. Transparency breeds urgency. It becomes a wake-up call and ultimately a challenge to manufacturers to improve their product offerings.
