It’s Aliiiive! My Passion Project to Make Secondhand Shopping Faster & Easier

It’s been a minute! I’ve been up to a few different things since my last update about the beauty that is the Canadian recycling system:

  1. Going full-time with my sustainable events business
  2. Planning my wedding, then re-planning it because pandemic (2 weeks to the big day!)
  3. Launching the project this post is about!

I’ve written extensively before about my love of secondhand shopping, my ethical motivation for shopping secondhand, and how I think the world would be a better place if the people who had useful stuff and the people who want that stuff had a better way to get connected.

I’ve had an idea in my head for a few years about a way to make secondhand shopping easier, but I only worked on it intermittently and didn’t know how to bring it into reality. Enter my amazing fiance, Mark, a coding wizard with mad technical skillz, and together we brought my dream into reality earlier this year.

So I unveil to you (drumroll please)…

Hand holding iPhone showing homepage of Secondarie website that reads "The easiest way to find secondhand goods online" above a box containing search filters.

Secondarie, the easiest way to find secondhand goods online.

What is Secondarie?

Secondarie is a search tool that makes online secondhand shopping faster and easier by searching multiple marketplaces at once and showing you all the results in one easy-to-use interface.⁠

One of the major challenges of online secondhand shopping is having to go to multiple websites or apps and constantly repeat your search in order to find the right item. It’s tedious and time-consuming, creating a significant barrier for those who may want to shop secondhand but can’t spend hours searching for the thing they need.

For secondhand to be a practical first choice, we knew it had to get easier and less time-consuming for each of us to find the specific items we need.⁠ That’s what we aim to do with Secondarie. Our goal is to make choosing “secondhand first” just as easy as shopping at a big box store or ordering from a mega-warehouse.⁠

Secondarie also makes it easier to reach a larger audience when selling secondhand items online. Instead of having to cross-post to multiple marketplaces, you can simply post your item to one of the platforms that Secondarie pulls from, and it will be visible to everyone who searches on Secondarie.

Secondarie currently compiles results from:

  • Craigslist
  • eBay
  • Poshmark
  • Goodwill Auctions
  • Bonanza
  • ThredUP

And we’re adding more sources all the time.

We’d love to get feedback from secondhand aficionados. Check out Secondarie here and let us know what you think! And for the latest updates on new features and search tips, follow Secondarie on Instagram or Facebook.

Commemorating Rana Plaza with a Different Kind of Fashion Show

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This tragedy ultimately killed more than 1,100 people, many of whom had been pressured to continue working to produce apparel in a building that was visibly unsafe.

The anniversary of this event is commemorated each year by Fashion Revolution Week, which prompts each of us to ask “Who made my clothes?” and hold brands accountable for their supply chains, wages and working conditions.

Two local brands in Indianapolis, Liz Alig and People for Urban Progress, celebrated the spirit of Fashion Revolution by hosting a Slow Fashion Runway Show. All garments and accessories presented in the show were made of repurposed, handwoven or natural textiles and were produced ethically.

Designers from Liz Alig and PUP were recognized at the end of the show



Display of PUP's products

People for Urban Progress specializes in creating bags and wallets out of repurposed materials



People shopping in a warehouse setting

Guests had the opportunity to shop both brands after the runway show



I’ve written about Liz Alig before, as the brand is not only local to Indianapolis, but is truly one of the most consistent brands I’ve ever encountered in terms of demonstrating its social and environmental values. Liz Alig uses upcycled fabrics & handwoven textiles and partners with fair trade cooperatives around the world to produce their garments, with the goal of providing employment and opportunities for women.

People for Urban Progress is an Indianapolis-based nonprofit organization that creates products using discarded materials that contain a piece of Indy’s history. Some notable materials they repurpose are the covering of the former Hoosier Dome and outdoor signage from Super Bowl 46, which was held in Indianapolis. Each product is handmade in Indy by local artists.

Check out the galleries below to see the collections that were on display at the Slow Fashion Runway Show.

Liz Alig’s Collection


People for Urban Progress’ Collection

It’s Clothing Swap Time Again!

Are you depressed by winter doldrums? Is your life an endless and unvarying gray cloud? Do you find yourself wearing a burlap sack every day because you just can’t muster the energy to care?

Screenshot of registration websiteFret not, my pretties! It’s clothing swap time again! And we’re very optimistic, so we’re calling it SpringSwap18. Suck it, winter.

Join us at New Day Craft on Wednesday, Feb. 28 from 6–8pm for a jubilant evening of apparel, accessories, cider, friendship and more. Due to our cozy space, there are only 30 spots available, so sign up now!

See the deets and register >>

How to Start Spending Ethically

Woman holding three shopping bags over her shoulder

Recently a friend reached out to me about her goal for 2018. She wants to focus on making her spending more ethical, and she asked if there were any tips I could provide.

My friend is already an incredibly thoughtful and globally-conscious person, so I didn’t need to start at the very beginning. (“You may not have realized that the products you buy are manufactured by people, and they’re made out of natural resources provided by our planet…”) I remembered a post I wrote a few years ago called The Beginner’s Guide to Ethical Shopping, which focuses on how to evaluate the ethical qualities of a specific brand. While that information is still helpful, I realized I hadn’t written a holistic post about how to change one’s shopping routine overall.

After thinking about what practical tips I could give my friend, here are the steps I came up with for how to start spending ethically:

1. Buy less

The best way to reduce the environmental impact of your shopping habits is simply to buy less. This graphic created by my friend Elizabeth at The Note Passer was incredibly helpful to me when I began my ethical lifestyle journey:

Flow chart: Do I really need it? Does it need to be new? Can I buy it ethically?

This graphic is from 2013, so some of the secondhand companies listed are out of date, but the thought process remains the same.

The most important purchases to curtail are those of brand new items. New items have the highest environmental impact because they use new natural resources and require energy to be produced and distributed. Products made with recycled materials have a lower impact, but recycling still requires a great amount of energy and often some new resources to be combined with recycled material.

I was never a big shopper even before I began focusing on ethical consumption, but I found that as I’ve focused on cutting down on new purchases over the years, my purchases of even secondhand items have gone down as well. I’ve gotten much more into the habit of asking myself if I truly need to own something, or if I can borrow it or make do without.

This adaptation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs into the Buyerarchy of Needs, designed by Sarah Lazarovic, has also been a helpful guide for me:

Pyramid from bottom to top: Use what you have, borrow, swap, thrift, make, buy

Now, you may have rightly realized that in the short-term, the strategy of buying less may not provide direct economic benefits to people employed by manufacturing. However, the culture of rampant consumption leads to long-term effects I consider far more harmful and significant, effects which require a significant economic pivot in order to be resolved.

Constantly growing consumption leads to pressures for factories, and therefore workers, to produce more products faster and cheaper, leading to lower wages and more stressful and dangerous working conditions. Unbridled production also leads to environmental degradation, often in locations with minimal environmental regulations. (Rivers running red and purple with dye in India come to mind.) This kind of poorly regulated manufacturing can lead to unhealthy or unpleasant living conditions. So rather than providing direct economic benefits, the idea of buying less is about creating a cultural and economic shift that realizes both human capacity and natural resources have limits, and that a system based on endless expansion is not sustainable.

2. Prioritize your values

If you want to shop more ethically, chances are you already have one or more issues in mind that are motivating you to make a change. Whether it’s a desire to alleviate poverty, support women, reduce your carbon footprint, prevent deforestation, or any other motivating factor, when it comes to creating a practical shopping strategy, it helps to prioritize your values from most to least important to you. Having an idea of what’s most important to you will help you make decisions when choosing from products with varying ethical/sustainable claims.

After prioritizing your values, determine what characteristic of a product goes along with that value. In other words, what “counts” to you as meeting that value? This will help you understand which product labels, certifications, ingredients, etc. correlate with your values. Here’s an example using some my values:

  • Workers treated ethically – label from Fair Trade USA, Fairtrade, or Fair Trade Federation; or a thorough and transparent statement from the company about their practices
  • Organic/chemical-free – label from an official organic certifying body such as the USDA or Oregon Tilth; or for local small producers, assertion from the producers that their products are chemical-free
  • Palm-oil free – ingredients list does not include any of the palm oil root words that I know about

You might need to create a couple of different rankings based on different broad product categories. For example, for clothing, accessories and other non-consumable goods, my priorities generally go in this order:

  1. Secondhand
  2. Fair trade/workers treated ethically
  3. Zero waste/minimal packaging/no plastic microfibers
  4. Recycled materials
  5. Organic materials
  6. Local

However, for food, my priority list looks more like this:

  1. Fair trade/workers treated ethically
  2. Organic/chemical-free
  3. Palm-oil free
  4. Zero waste/minimal packaging
  5. Local

Sometimes these values will shift around depending on the circumstances. You might find a product that meets every value except your #1 value, or you’ll find yourself comparing a product that meets two of your values with another that meets three totally different values. It’s easy to fall into analysis paralysis in situations like this, especially when you factor in other characteristics of a product like price, style, and quality. To help with this, you may want to include price in your value rankings as well. Which values are you willing to pay more to get, and which are just nice-to-haves if they fall within your budget?

Despite the occasional fluctuations, being clear on your values and how to tell if a product meets those values are important steps to shopping more ethically.

3. Change your routine

Now that you know what types of products you’re looking for, you need to figure out where to get them. The hardest part of changing your shopping habits is changing your routine. If you’re a “get everything at Target” person, it will take some adjustment if you need to go to different stores to find the values-based products you want. However, I’ve found that now that I’m in a new routine, shopping by my values comes naturally, pretty much automatically. It doesn’t occur to me to shop in the mainstream, conventional way, because I’ve created a routine that’s both convenient and personally fulfilling to me.

Start by getting into a routine for the products you buy most often, which for me is food. With how I shop now, I’ve found that I shop at more stores for food than I did before, but fewer stores for everything else.

I’ve gotten familiar enough with the stores in my area to know that for organic, zero-waste peanut butter, I need to go to Fresh Thyme. I get organic bulk foods at the Good Earth, Fresh Thyme or Earth Fare, and I get organic packaged goods at Kroger (their Simple Truth store brand has a lot of organic bargains). I get chemical-free, zero-waste produce at the farmers’ market, Kroger or Fresh Thyme.

For personal care items, I start at the Good Earth, but I also get some items on Etsy because they have a bigger selection of palm-oil free products. Kroger is my stop for inexpensive recycled toilet paper.

For non-consumable goods, my first stop is always Goodwill, then usually Amanda’s Exchange consignment store, or sometimes Craigslist or Facebook. If I need to get gifts, my first stop is fair trade store Global Gifts, then other locally-owned boutiques and gift shops.

4. Cut yourself some slack

Just because you’ve decided to change your shopping habits, that doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly have enough time in the day to perfectly follow your new system for every purchase from day one. I’d say it took me about five years to really develop a comprehensive ethical shopping routine, and it’s still growing and changing. I started in college with the items I bought most often and that had high levels of worker mistreatment: clothes, shoes, chocolate. Once I moved into an apartment, I started being more conscious about other food items. As my interest in sustainability grew, I started favoring used items and products with less packaging. And just within the last year, I’ve started avoiding palm oil and plastic microfibers.

There will always be some aspect of a product that’s unethical on someone’s standards (unless you live on a self-sufficient permaculture farm and weave fabric out of your own hair). That doesn’t negate the positive effects of the values-based choices you make. Buying less is pretty much always a win. But when you do need to buy something, getting a product that causes less harm in a certain area than the standard option does seems like a no-brainer to me.

If you’re an old pro, what other tips do you have for someone getting into an ethical shopping routine? Post them in the comments!

Eco-Friendly Bedding: Shopping for a Flame-Retardant-Free Mattress

Close-up of mattress quilting

I’ve been vaguely intending to get a new mattress for a couple of years. My old one was somewhere between 20 and 25 years old, first having served as a guest bed for a few years, then as my bed since I was about 10. She was trusty and sturdy but starting to get saggy. After moving into the house I decided it was finally time to do the upgrade from full to queen and treat myself to a more supportive night’s sleep.

Obviously for such a large purchase I wanted to make an ethical and sustainable choice, but I wasn’t totally sure what that meant for a mattress. The three factors I pondered were:

  • The presence of flame-retardant chemicals (I wanted a mattress without them)
  • Use of sustainable/renewable materials
  • How and where the mattress is made

Another caveat for my buying process was that I wanted to be able try out the mattress in the store before ordering. This requirement ruled out the many eco-friendly mattress brands available online. (If you’re less squeamish about picking a mattress without trying it, The Good Trade has an excellent rundown of sustainable online brands). My final requirement was staying within a budget of about $1,200 for a queen-sized mattress and box spring.

The mattress I ended up choosing is the Celebrity Soft Top from Holder Mattress:

Celebrity mattress from Holder Mattress

Ignore the bad lighting and focus on the pillowy quilted goodness.

Celebrity mattress label

Celebrity: No longer just *NSYNC’s mediocre final album.

If you haven’t heard of Holder Mattress, that’s because to my knowledge it isn’t a nationally-distributed brand. When I first heard about the company a few years ago, what intrigued me was that Holder has its factory and headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., about an hour north of Indianapolis. In terms of getting a locally-made mattress, you can’t get much closer than that.

Since mattresses are so large and heavy, I like that these finished products aren’t shipped all over the place before reaching their final destinations. Holder has a showroom in Kokomo and another in Carmel, which is the one I visited. I tried out one of the floor models, and then they made my mattress to order and delivered it to my house. Each mattress is handmade, and in addition to the minimal-shipping factor, I liked supporting a fairly small and family-owned business.

As with food, I assume the transportation footprint of a mattress is relatively small compared to the footprint of its production overall, so I don’t wave the local flag as a huge and definitive sustainability win. Rather, I consider it a positive factor that combines certain environmental and community benefits. Following my purchase, I learned that there are in fact many mattress brands that manufacture within the U.S. Holder still seems to be the closest to Indianapolis, but if you live elsewhere you likely have other local mattress options.

The other factor on which Holder Mattress won me over was the fact they don’t use flame-retardant chemicals in any of their mattresses. Why did I want to avoid flame-retardant chemicals? First of all, it’s not 1960; I don’t smoke in bed (or at all). Second, as our guest blogger Travis Nagle briefly touched on in his post about eco-friendly furniture, flame retardants have been questioned as ineffective precautions that are also linked to a variety of health problems. A new study out this month finds an association between certain flame retardant chemicals and thyroid cancer.

One of my early furniture-buying regrets is that I let the salesperson who sold me my sofa talk me into a stain-resistant chemical coating. I hate to think what invisible chemicals it’s been off-gassing for the last five years. I definitely wanted to avoid any unnecessarily chemicals in a mattress that I plan to sleep on every night for the next 10–20 years.

The sustainable characteristic I didn’t really get with this mattress was the use of natural materials. The Celebrity is one of Holder’s lowest models, so it contains less-expensive materials such as polyurethane padding and polyester fabric. I initially felt strongly about getting a petroleum-free mattress—people used to make mattresses before we turned liquid dinosaurs into fabric and foam; why can’t we now? But ultimately, cost is what deterred me from pursuing a more natural mattress. In its higher-end lines, Holder does produce mattresses using wool fabric and latex foam, but their most natural option was $3,600 for a queen set—three times my budget. Depending on the brand, queen sets using latex foam appear to start around $2,000 and go up from there.

I’m about 80% satisfied with the mattress choice I made, but If I were to do this process again, there are a couple of things I would do differently:

  1. Attempt to find a latex foam mattress to try in-store. One reason I was hesitant to order a natural mattress from an online brand is the fact that I haven’t encountered a latex foam mattress in person before. I don’t know if I would even like what it feels like to lay on one. However, this type of mattress is becoming more popular. I could have tried one in-store (such as the high-end Holder version), and then perhaps felt more secure ordering a less-expensive latex mattress brand online.
  2. Do more research about the benefits of natural materials in mattresses. Once I found a flame-retardant-free mattress I could try out in a store and that was within my budget, I didn’t really pursue any further research into natural materials. In hindsight, I wish I would have done more research about both the individual and systemic benefits of using renewable materials in mattresses, and used that information to decide how much I was willing to spend on it.

Responsibly Disposing of Old Mattresses

Another reason I initially wanted a mattress made of natural materials was to give consideration to the eventual end of the mattress’s useful life. When a mattress is no longer supportive or comfortable to sleep on, what can be done with it? Most mattresses today end up in a landfill, and my thought was that a mattress made of natural materials may be easier to recycle. However, after some light Googling, I’m not immediately finding any programs that claim latex mattresses are any easier to recycle than conventional mattresses. Latex mattresses are indeed recyclable, and so are the majority of components in a traditional mattress. The tricky part is actually finding a facility that will pick up and recycle your mattress.

The challenge of responsible mattress disposal is also one of the reasons I was hesitant to try an online-only mattress brand. Most of these brands offer some version of the “try for 100 nights” plan where you can return the mattress if you end up not liking it. However, I think “return” is a misleading word in these programs, because once a mattress has been in use for 3+ months, the company can’t turn around and re-sell it to someone else. I discussed this briefly with my salesperson at the Holder showroom. Holder also has a try-and-return program, and the salesperson said the company used to be able to reuse the inner components of a returned mattress, but now if a mattress is returned they throw the whole thing away. I’m not sure if this is due to a specific law, concerns about bedbugs, or both, but the fact remains that at a minimum, a significant portion (if not all) of a mattress goes to waste if you decide to return it after trying it.

After being unable to find a local charity that accepts mattress donations, I decided to keep my old mattress and box spring as a combination of lounge seating and a guest bed in my basement (which I affectionately refer to as “the tacky den”). After I set it up I actually got giddy about how awesome it is. Behold the majesty:

Mattress seating in basement den

*cue angelic choir*

I threw my old college bedding on it, and boom! A relaxing and decadent seating area only enhanced by its wood paneling backdrop. The height is perfect for seating but not too awkwardly low for a bed. My roommates John Cena and Frodo approve.

If you aren’t blessed with a room free-spirited enough to have a mattress couch, I did come across 1-800-GOT-JUNK in my research, a company that will pick up old mattresses and purportedly recycle them if possible. You can also check out this directory of mattress recycling locations; however, the facility in Indiana no longer appears to be in operation.

Stay tuned for part two of this post, in which I delight in the eco-friendly features of my new queen bedding.

Have you purchased an eco-friendly mattress, online or otherwise? What brand did you go with, and how did it work out?

Upstream or Downstream: How to Solve Microfiber Pollution

Large school of fish near coral reef

I’m far from a serious student of the philosophy of ethics, but I did pick up one principle a few years ago in passing that has stuck with me. The principle is from Immanuel Kant, and in simplified terms it states that an act is only moral if you would wish all other people to behave the same way (for it to become a “universal law,” in Kant’s words). I don’t apply this to every action in my daily life, but when I’m making a new decision I do often think about what the collective effects would be if everyone in XYZ group did the same thing I did. This is how I formed my general philosophy about waste—just me throwing away one bottle instead of recycling it isn’t a big deal, but if that’s what everyone did, we would have millions more bottles in the landfill. It’s also this philosophy that reminds me that our individual actions make a collective difference.

This week I was checking out a new campaign from the Story of Stuff Project, and I was intrigued by their philosophical approach, which seemed to turn mine on its ear but also made a lot of sense. The campaign is called the Story of Microfibers, and it aims to address the issue of microscopic plastic pollution from synthetic fabrics in oceans and other bodies of water. Here’s their video that provides a general overview of the issue:

While reading their page of proposed solutions to the microfiber crisis, I was caught by this explanation of their approach. After listing several consumer-end solutions like washing machine filters or mesh laundry bags, author Michael O’Heaney states:

…these interventions require universal adoption to work… As our founder Annie Leonard puts it, when it’s hard to figure out how to fix a problem on your own, or the fix is onerous or expensive, that should serve as a sort of metal detector for flaws in the system; it should encourage us to look further upstream for a solution.”

Basically, he’s saying that if the solution to a problem requires the universal adoption of a certain behavior by consumers, that typically indicates the presence of a flaw at a higher level of the system. To me, this makes a lot of sense and addresses the inherent flaw in my default moral structure, which is the fact that my action may be beneficial if multiplied by a hundred or a thousand or a million people, but in all likelihood the majority of other people are likely not willing or able to make the same choice.

For the Story of Stuff, this philosophy led them all the way upstream to clothing manufacturers. Their recommended action is for consumers to call upon apparel companies to invest in research and development for new fabric technologies that will prevent the release of microfibers into the environment.

In the long term, I think this is a fantastic solution. I’m a huge supporter of companies being held responsible for the environmental impacts of their products. However, as an avid secondhand shopper with a tendency to keep my clothes for as long as possible, I’m resistant to the idea of buying an all-new wardrobe made of microfiber-free fabric. (Kant urges me to think of the implications if everyone did this universally!) Plus, it could be years before these new technologies are developed, tested and released into the marketplace. We would be remiss to dismiss the solutions aimed at addressing the microfiber pollution caused by clothing already in circulation. (Side note: Someone please keep #RemissToDismiss in your back pocket as the hashtag for some future social justice campaign.)

These are the consumer-based solutions discussed on the Story of Stuff page:

  • Wear and wash synthetic fabrics less often
  • Choose clothing made of natural fibers like cotton, linen or hemp
  • Use a laundry accessory designed to minimize microfiber pollution, such as the Guppy Friend, soon to be available at Patagonia (I also found another microfiber catcher in development from the Rozalia Project)
  • Install a washing machine filter to capture microfibers (such as this one)

In my research I found surprisingly little information about opportunities to support ocean cleanup efforts to reduce the amount of plastic already in the water system. For now the conversation seems to be focused heavily on prevention.

I appreciate the Story of Stuff Project’s strategy for spotting red flags for systemic flaws, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you see me apply that line of thought to more topics in the future. But as I sit here in my cozy fleece jacket made of recycled bottles that will surely release hundreds of thousands of fibers the next time I wash it, unsure of the timeline of technological advancement in fabrics, some degree of consumer-based solution seems necessary to me alongside high-level systemic change. While consumer solutions may have a comparatively low adoption rate and not fully stem the tide of microfiber pollution, they can be a stepping stone that reduces pollution while we wait for more comprehensive industry action.

My final pondering about the microfibers issue is where it will end up ranking in priority with other critical apparel industry improvements, such as ensuring safety and living wages for factory workers. I haven’t seen these issues addressed jointly yet, but hopefully manufacturers will realize the need to take responsibility for the impacts of their products at both the start and end of the lifecycle, and not ignore one in favor of the other.

The Benefits of Eco-Friendly Furniture

Eco-friendly sofa with accent pillows

Pel Sofa by Stem

One of my goals for furnishing my house is to buy as few brand-new items as possible. I enjoy giving old items new life and the treasure hunt aspect of finding just the right thing in an unexpected place. However, secondhand furniture isn’t practical for every situation, which is why it’s important for manufacturers to start producing furniture in a more environmentally-friendly way. Travis Nagle is the co-founder of Stem, a furniture company that does just that. Stem specializes in high-quality furniture made from natural materials and no toxic glues or varnishes. Travis wrote the following post describing why the materials that go into our furniture matter for our health and the planet. — Julia


The idea of eco-friendly furniture has been around for a long time, though it hasn’t always been identified as such—think back to the days before particleboard and synthetic fillers. Big industry and economic pressures advanced society in many positive ways, but also created an atmosphere where a lot of home products are designed and built solely to maximize efficiency and profits. So where does that leave consumers today? For the most part, there has been a trend over the past 25 years towards building overseas, using lower quality materials, and prioritizing volume. On the other had, there are a handful of companies like the brand I founded called Stem that take the opposite approach: furniture built in the US using eco-friendly materials. While this can mean a higher price point, the pieces last a lifetime and help create a healthier home. Let’s take a look at some key benefits of eco-friendly materials.

No Unnecessary Toxins Added to Materials

For many years it was required by law to add fire retardants to upholstered goods like sofas and sectionals. After some hard fought battles, California finally revised their state law so that they are no longer required, which has led more manufacturers to produce furniture without them. This is great news because fire retardants, while actually not doing that much to add a level of safety, have been linked to a variety of health issues. Many companies have removed fire retardants, but you can confirm with each product you shop for by asking the manufacturer or referring to the label.

In addition, many companies layer stain repellants on top of fabrics. While these can help in the short term, they may also lead to serious health issues with consistent exposure. In short, it’s best to get your furniture free of the standard stain repellent products in the market. If you do, choose a fabric that is more forgiving or even a slipcover for the cushions to protect them from stains.

Modern eco-friendly chair next to window

Rondi Chair by Stem

Building Without Harsh Chemicals

A lot of furniture looks great in terms of style, but it’s hard to know what they are finished with. Eco brands typically will use 100% natural wood versus plywood. In addition to solid wood being better quality and more durable, plywood can contain harmful chemicals like formaldehyde. In terms of the outside of the pieces, eco-friendly sofas use clear coats, paints and glues that are all low- or zero-VOC. These final layers of material can potentially impact the air in your home and some may even be carcinogenic.

Natural Materials

A big part of furniture building that has gone out of fashion is focusing on natural materials like cotton, wool, and solid wood. These materials will not only offer a product with less toxins but also are biodegradable. It can be difficult to find materials that are certified organic, but there definitely are some fabrics out there that comply. In addition, some brands like Stem offer eco-friendly furniture that is made of 100% natural materials from the inside out including natural latex and jute instead of poly-based options.

Sustainable Resources

In addition to being better for your home, non-toxic furniture is also better for the environment. To be sustainable, solid wood should be from either FSC or SFI certified sources. The main focus here is on how the wood is harvested and replenished with use, and treating the forests for long term viability. There are also some great products out there that utilize reclaimed wood, many times taken from torn down buildings or old discarded lumber. Extending the lifespan of the natural resources does a lot for the environment. In addition, some synthetic materials are also repurposed like fabrics that are made from recycled materials. The longer the lifespan of a material for any type of product, the better off we all are.

Since the market is still relatively young for these type of products, the prices are sometimes higher than conventional furniture. As the demand grows the materials and practices should be more readily available, and hopefully all companies will do their best to incorporate sustainable and healthy practices. Until then, it might be worth taking a little extra time to ask brands about their products so you can make sure you get a quality item and know what you’re bringing into your home.


Thanks again to Travis Nagle of Stem! Want to check out some other eco-friendly furniture options? Our friends at The Good Trade have an additional list of 14 sustainable furniture brands.