Green Home Products Add Value

Chicago, IL, Mar. 26--Corn carpeting, wheat cabinets and sugar cane and sesame seed tables are some of the ingredients in what could be a recipe for success in the eco-friendly home furnishings market, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Several Chicago area designers and retailers want to prove that "green" home products are as beautiful and durable as mass-produced, traditional products. The Chicago Design Show's "Sustainable Design Pavilion" last fall at the Merchandise Mart offered a showcase for the latest in environmentally friendly home furnishings--the first such exhibit in the U.S. A mini-exhibit is coming to the Field Museum on Earth Day, April 24, as part of the Green Chicago Eco-Friendly Homes Fair. Both displays were created and organized by Barry Bursak, an environmental consultant who runs SustainableHome.com to promote green products. The design show was a forum for showing how the latest products and processes can supply an entire home, such as nontoxic paint on the walls and flooring made from natural and renewable resources (including bamboo, cork and linoleum). "To have sustainable products in your home doesn't mean they have to be second best," Bursak said. He added that the show featured furnishings "that can compete with anything on the market." While the building industry and commercial furnishings market have begun to embrace environmentally friendly processes and products, the home furnishings market and consumers have been slow to follow suit. It has been Bursak's decades-long mission to promote green products for the home market, "which hasn't, in any way, been responding," he said. "Schools and nursing homes are requiring nontoxic materials," he said. Government contracts are calling for green products, too, Bursak said, motivated by a desire to avoid lawsuits filed over toxins and other health concerns. People haven't responded by trying to keep potentially toxic materials out of their homes, nor have they tried to help the environment with their purchases, he said. The design show drew attention to the mission, showing the home design trade and media that green products can be both beautiful and practical. The show drew interest in the movement from around the country, he said. If social conscience won't sell green products, beauty and practicality might. Some of the most successful green products are hot items in spite of their environmental benefits. "Cork and bamboo flooring is already mainstream. Bamboo is so beautiful, people buy it," Bursak said. "It's just a beautiful, durable material." Linoleum, which is regaining popularity, and cork are popular for their look, durability and softness underfoot. To show the practical side of green home products, Bursak's pavilion at the design show featured model home vignettes. Sustainable products were used to create a kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, children's room, home office and meditation room. The displays used several types of biocomposites, items that used agricultural byproducts, natural fibers and recycled materials. Some of the products featured were: * Kitchen cabinets made from Wheatboard, an alternative to medium density fiberboard that uses the straw left after wheat is harvested. Wheatboard and other "agriboard" products use soy-based binders instead of formaldehyde. * Countertops made from recycled materials. * Bedding made with organic cotton. Organic cotton isn't sprayed with pesticides, and the fabric isn't treated with chemicals. * Corn carpeting, made by Interface Flor, which specializes in carpet made from renewable and recycled fibers. "It feels just like a wood or sisal. You can't tell the difference," said Robyn Griggs Lawrence, editor of Natural Home magazine. * Tabletops made from sugar cane, sesame seeds and recycled newspapers, using nontoxic adhesives. They were created by Chicago designer Mike Slattery of AAA Design. * Nontoxic and low-toxin paints, called low-voc (low volatile organic compounds) and no-voc paint, by AFM Safecoat, a California company, decorated the walls, as did new nontoxic wall coverings.