Beautifully crafted designer furniture that we’ll want to keep for years and that’s good for our planet? It’s a lot to expect, but responsibly sourced materials, low-chemical components, and a little foresight can lessen the impact.
Abandoned sofas and futon frames have become such a common sight in our back-lanes, yards and on the pavements that we probably don’t even notice even more what this means for our countryside: more landfills full of toxic waste.
This is where Upholstery Arts comes in. The Canadian furniture company is a world leader in cradle-to-cradle design, meaning that their furniture is of no threat to nature – or us. If you choose not to return your aging Upholstery Arts couch to the company to be fully recycled – except for the zipper - you could chop it up and put in your garden. It’s that natural.
CEO Len Laycock explains ” Terrible things that ought to be unthinkable have become normal. In the furniture industry, ‘normal’ practices have resulted in chemical fire retardants from polyurethane foam contaminating your breast milk, toxic heavy metals from textiles in your blood, and a chemical stew of toxic volatile organic compounds from lumber, glue, stains and padding, off-gassing into your lungs.”
Instead of relying on common practices and materials Laycock uses non-treated lumber, latex foam and wool for his range of sofas, chairs and tables. His emphasis is as much on bio-degradability as it is on lasting design, he makes sofas and couches that are of such high quality and craftsmanship to last us a life-time. And should you change your mind and you want to get rid of your old couch after a few years, take it back and Upholstery Arts will repurpose the sofa, it could be upholstered, reissued and sold as vintage. Or it could be literally returned to the earth.
image:upholsteryarts.ca
Nice post to see.