School Furniture Blog

Eco-friendly, green, low carbon footprint, environmentally conscious. These terms are becoming important to consumers when buying everyday objects. From eco-friendly furniture, local food, and hybrid cars, we are all doing our part to make an effort.

For some, the objects we fill our homes and garages with are just a tip of the iceberg. A whole street in Dallas, Texas is slowing turning green and compassionately so. The Congo Street Green Initiative is not just transforming an aging street into a green habitiat, but is improving family’s lives in the process.

Here is the mission statement found on the Congo Street Green Initiative’s blog:

A recent visit from Emmitt Smith on Congo Street

This narrow street, with 17 single-family and duplex houses all built before 1910, was often referred to as the “all-colored alley” – a reference as much to its demographic as to its small scale. In 1933 the City of Dallas officially changed its name from Carroll Drive to Congo Street, an overt reference to Africa meant to ‘forewarn’ whites attending the State Fair just a few blocks to the South. Sixty years later, the Street’s landlord deeded properties on the North side of the street to long-time residents, and many of those who live there now are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of former renters, witness to multiple generations of its tight-knit community.

The process of restoring structural integrity to the Street developed out of a desire to preserve the pervasive sense of community and to respect the economic options available to neighbors as both land and homeowners. Each resident has expressed a desire to remain on Congo despite the need to repair their home, and have therefore deferred previous plans that sought to displace them, even temporarily.

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Children learn by example and if they see the adults in their lives working on the three “R’s”, reduce, reuse, recycle there is a good chance that they too will become environmentally responsible. Setting up a green classroom may seem like like a daunting task but its really very simple to do.  There are many eco-friendly school furniture products available as well as many ‘green’ school supplies on the market.

Teachers can make many small and easy changes in order for their classroom to be more eco-friendly. To help get you started on your way to a greener school year here are several tips on how to run an environmentally friendly classroom provided by Danielle Crofford Fetters.

Have Recycling Bins Available

Encourage the children in your classroom to recycle everything from plastic drink bottles, aluminum cans to paper by having clearly marked recycle bins in the classroom. If new recycling bins are not in the budget, simply use discarded cardboard boxes or school furniture boxes from the office.

Turn Off Lights When Leaving The Classroom

Set an example for the children in your classroom by always remembering to turn off the lights and other electronic devices whenever you leave the classroom. You could even appoint a child the job of light monitor and let them be in charge of insuring that all lights are turned off in the classroom whenever you leave it.Turning off lights when not in use is good for the environment and your schools budget.

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Worthington Direct

Worthington Direct is proud to offer environmentally friendly school furniture from top manufacturers such as Virco, Smith System, Jonti-Craft, Best-Rite and Bretford.

Look for Greenguard Certified products that ensure improved indoor air quality (http://www.greenguard.org/ ). Our website, http://www.worthingtondirect.com/, features a section for “Greenguard Certified Eco-Friendly Furniture”, and the Greenguard logo can also be found throughout our printed catalog identifying participating products.
We also offer products constructed of reclaimed materials. These products include Telos classroom furniture from Virco and Rubber-Tak boards made from 100% recycled rubber by Best-Rite. New for 2009 is Best-Rite’s Green-Rite markerboard that has 30% recyclable product and is recognized for its exceptional material content and emission standards.

As a direct mail company, Worthington Direct is also environmentally aware and participates in the “Partners in Planting Program” which underwrites the planting of trees.

Worthington Direct is a very competitive furniture dealer who offers a 2% discount if you take advantage of pre-pay. Purchase orders accepted or you can order by phone, fax, or online. Receive instant shipping quotes online or request a custom volume quote from their courteous sales staff. For more information, contact the Sales Department, 800-599-6636 or info@worthingtondirect.com

School desks now have a future beyond the landfill.  Old school desks and chairs can be separated down into individual materials and then recycled to create new school furniture.  Worthington Direct proudly sells school furniture made from post-consumer materials such as Virco’s Telos and ZUMA series school chairs.  Visit www.WorthingtonDirect.com today and check out the products in the Greenguard Certified Eco-Friendly Furniture catagory. 

Virco’s Take-Back Program: 

This ground-breaking program involves taking back out-of-service Virco furniture – and potentially other products made of specific materials – from our customers and recycling the components. Some of this recycled material can then be included in the Fortified Recycled Wood™ that’s used to make seats, backrests and work surfaces for our highly sustainable Telos™ and ZUMAfrd™ furniture collections; some recycled material may also be distributed to other users. Beginning in 2006, Virco established a regular Take-Back program that’s open to qualifying schools and school districts nationwide. 

Recycle to Avoid:

One by one, custodians are removing desks and chairs from Dumpsters across Napa Valley Unified School District. All week, school Dumpsters brimmed with desks, chairs and picnic tables to make room for a new shipment of furniture for Napa schools.

Now, after a public outcry, the furniture will find a haven in storage facilities until school officials decide what to do with the mountains of unused desks and chairs. Comment Email Print ShareIn 2002, voters passed Measure M, the $95 million NVUSD school bond that budgets $1.5 million for the replacement of student furniture. The funds cover the replacement of up to half of NVUSD’s student furniture, said Don Evans, NVUSD director of school planning and construction.

With students on spring break, custodians busied themselves with the task of tossing old furniture into the garbage in time for the arrival of the new furniture this week. Discarded furniture ranged from decades old to relatively new. Each principal was charged with determining which and how much furniture to throw away, said Evans. At some schools, the number of discarded desks reached into hundreds. Nearly all of the discarded desks and chairs are functional, said NVUSD custodians. Some, said Evans, were clearly unusable.

It took no time at all for the community to respond with outrage. With districts across the state faced with potentially severe budget cuts, even custodians complained about throwing away perfectly good furniture. Evans explained that the
district is legally precluded from donating the furniture because it was purchased with public funds. Past attempts by the district to sell furniture proved unsuccessful, he said.

Some citizens took matters into their own hands, driving out to schools and filling the backs of their trucks with desks to donate to local organizations. Evans said he was inundated with phone calls and e-mails complaining about the discarded furniture. So on Wednesday — with about half of the Dumpsters already delivered to the local recycling facility — Evans put an immediate stop to the process because of what he called “some bad feelings in the community.”

“I have people right now going to every one of the schools to tell the head custodians to store the used furniture on campus,” he said. “We thought we had a pretty good game plan,” said Evans, adding, “I just can’t afford to have the school district put in this light. We need to go back.” Continue Reading