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Environmental & Recycling Program

OFFICE FURNITURE

A broad spectrum of environmentally sound processes has been implemented in every phase of UNICOR's office furniture manufacturing, including refinishing, packaging and recycling.

Throughout all furniture lines, particle board, made with recycled materials from factories and sawmills, is used to form a substrate. This saves unnecessary use of virgin timber for substrate.

All UNICOR particle board, formed by binding ground wood particles together with synthetic resins under heat and pressure, is the highest grade available, so it complies with EPA Standard Title 25 for Air Resources.

It should be noted that, because a urea-formaldehyde resin bonds the wood particles, formaldehyde vapor is emitted when the board is cut for manufacturing. However, when the finish is applied to completed furniture, the vapor is sealed, blocking emissions.

To provide the best possible appearance, veneers in many lines of UNICOR furniture are of hardwoods. But all are indigenous to the United States and Canada. No species is used whose use would further deplete tropical rain forests.

Furniture Finishing

UNICOR is installing waterborne finishing systems in all its factories to enhance worker safety and to protect the environment.

By implementing waterborne finishing systems, the use of flammable materials is substantially reduced, lowering the production of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and markedly cutting hazardous waste output, which is costly to remove. Similarly, UNICOR only uses water-based adhesives, eliminating the flammability hazard of most spray adhesives, while also lowering toxicity levels and VOC emissions.

Furniture Refinishing

All new stripping fluids are water based and EPA approved, all stripped material is disposed of as hazardous waste, and all new stains are water based and hazard free.

Packaging

All office furniture packing material used by UNICOR is made from partially recycled material. In order to further the concept of "closed loop" recycling (where material is remanufactured again and again), shrink wrap and cardboard used by UNICOR is recyclable when furniture is unpacked.

Office Furniture Recycling

Wood that is salvaged is cut into lengths or shredded and sold for fuel, or ground into mulch for sale to landscapers. Cotton batting, steel springs, sisal, foam, scrap metal, and scrap fabric are sold to a variety of processors for recycling.