Go Green: Furniture

Seth Eshelman started up his business "Staach" about 2 and a half years ago.  It's different from many other businesses around town because here, the goal is green.

"From start to finish we kind of consider ourselves more of a sustainable company," he says. 

He makes wooden furniture. Things like chairs and stools. He is careful about where the wood he uses comes from.

"All of our materials and wood that we are sourcing is from about a 150 mile radius of our workshop here and all of it is coming from well managed forests," he adds.  
 

He has also eliminated much of the waste that typically comes from a business like this.  "You can use universal parts, universal dimensions of things and just being able to cut them to length you really minimize waste."

And any wood scraps that are left over, get recycled.  "When we finally finish the product, we use a low voc non toxic water based lacquer."

Eschelman, who is an R.I.T. grad, ships his products all over the country. He says more and more customers are committing to him, because he is committing to the environment.  "When you kind of put it all together a lot of people don't realize how doing a little bit of research and managing materials, and managing energy will really in the end be very profitable."

If you aren't looking to buy new furniture, you can look at at re-using old furniture. Or re-furbishing pieces to meet your needs.