Help me find a sustainable office chair solution

Our business is located in a public space and utilizes office chairs which wear out at an incredible rate. Usually the first thing to go are the casters they roll on, but the leather seats also sometimes tear or come apart at the seams eventually. I really feel terrible throwing these cheap chairs out in the trash so frequently, but they are made of many components like leather, plastic, vinyl and steel and are not recyclable. Nor would I know where to turn them in to be recycled. The chairs in question are the ones you buy at an office store or IKEA and put together yourself. I want to find a more sustainable solution that won’t end up in a landfill.

There are a few scenarios:

  1. Hire a service which recycles chairs and provides new ones. (Does this exist? May be too pricey, we are a very small operation)
  2. Buy comfortable chairs that are strong and will last for years, and have recyclable components. (Does this exist?)
  3. Find a place that recycles office furniture.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

My advice would be to buy quality chairs that will last.

This will reduce the amount going to the garbage even if you don’t recycle.

However, cost considerations may limit your ability to do this.

I expect others will come along with better options.

Stop buying crappy chairs.

I have been sitting in the same Aeron chair for over ten years. It still looks brand new and has no issues.

Stop buying cheap, low-quality chairs.

Re your “recyclable components” question, the manufacturer claims that the HAG Futu chair is 97% recyclable and is constructed of 50% recycled materials. There are models for both task chairs and visitor chairs. (Yes, I did just buy a Futu recently. It was either that or a Steelcase Leap.)

http://www.hag-global.com/products/hag-futu/

As others have said, this is your problem. Chairs from companies like Herman Miller, and other companies that specialize in office furnishings, are a lot pricier, but there’s a good reason for that. I tend to be particularly rough on chairs, and used to go through cheap chairs at home every couple years or so. Ditto desks. I scored a Herman Miller desk and chair for free when our company closed an office, and have had zero problems with them since, going on 5 years now.

Invest in better quality furniture and it will indeed last. Maybe replace the chairs with higher quality ones, one by one as they wear out, if the expenditure is prohibitive. The aesthetics of mismatched chairs probably aren’t a huge deal if you’ve got a lot of worn out chairs already.

There’s a lot of gently used “contract” office furniture out there these days, at places that specialize in such. Here in Chicago, for instance, you can get Steelcase Rally chairs for $150 all the way up to like-new Steelcase Leap chairs for $400 each. Dozens and dozens in each color.

Many thanks for your suggestions. Yes I agree it’s better to buy sturdy products, but it was not my decision to buy cheap chairs. In fact, I bought a Hermann Miller Aeron chair for my home office many years ago when I had back problems. It was the most expensive chair I’ve ever bought but it was worth it. I’m now trying to find the most sustainable solution for our current dilemna. I’m not sure the Aeron is good for heavy usage and parts replacement because I had a few problems with it and it’s a complicated and time-consuming fix. (I had to replace some broken pneumatic controls myself and it wasn’t easy)

Mr Downtown, I live in Chicago, can you recommend some places or what I would search for to find these used furniture places?

I’m hoping for some specific chair recommendations. I’m looking for simple and environmentally sustainable but comfortable for someone who is sitting at work all day.

I had the same chair. Were you aware of the chair’s warranty? After about 10 years I had the same pneumatic cylinder breakdown. I checked on the warranty and realized that the chair has a 12 year warranty! I contacted the company, gave them the serial number, and they sent a repairman to my house to fix my chair. Man, that was easy. The chair should be good for another 10 years.

You’re not listening.

The most sustainable solution is to buy quality chairs. The cheapest solution is to buy quality chairs used.

Buying cheapo crap is both economically & ecologically the wrong way to do it. Convince whoever buys chairs to lower their chair budget by buying good ones once instead of crap ones five times.

Take a look at “24 hour” and “call center” chairs - these are built to endure use 24/7 by multiple people, and they can be had for under $300 new.

Just as one “first hit on Google” example, this chair sells for $270 and has a 5-year warranty on the upholstery and a lifetime warranty on the rest of the components.

My office uses ergonomic mesh chairs like these:

This one is $169.

I’ve had the same chair going on 10 years, perfectly comfortable without leather or padding that can be torn up. I’ve never seen a significant problem with any of my co-workers using the same type, out of a very large office with hundreds of people.

Why am I not listening? I’m confused. This is what I want to do.

These are the three biggest ones:
Villa Park Office Equipment
Office Furniture Center
Kentwood Office Furniture

I’ve had good experiences at the first two (just never happened to have bought from the third).Here’s a specific Craigslist ad for Steelcase Rally chairs at Kentwood

There are also a couple of places in the city, including a big one called Refurbished Office Environments. They’re not so much for the one-chair-at-a-time buyers, though I did happily buy only a dozen pedestals from them.

I am trying out two styles of chairs from this company: http://humanscale.com/products/product_detail.cfm?group=diffrientworldchair

I was able to get samples right away.
So far, so good! If our people are happy with them, I’ll buy one at a time as the old chairs wear out. They have a five year warranty. That alone will offset the cost of the chair.