Going back to school after summer vacation will always have its challenges, especially when they include significant furniture and equipment needs. Adding to the challenge is indoor air quality. More heavily exposed to environmental toxins by weight, younger children consume more food, water, and have higher inhalation rates per pound. That translates to greater sensitivity to indoor pollutants.

Furniture manufactured by Virco, a U.S. Communities supplier, is helping change the way schools address the indoor environment challenge.

In 2005, Virco product lines became the first classroom furniture lines to earn the premier national certification for meeting rigorous product emissions criteria for indoor air quality. Today, hundreds of Virco furniture models are certified according to this stringent indoor air quality standard for schools.

The recognition is in keeping with the furniture maker’s broader attention to sustainability. In manufacture, Virco purchases over $25 million worth of recycled-content materials every year to produce and ship its furniture. Overall, 95 percent of materials used to manufacture Virco products are recyclable. All steel used in Virco products is recyclable. Virco cartoning is 100 percent recyclable. So is its foam upholstery material, and plastics used in Virco products. Old work surfaces and hard plastic items can be reprocessed into the Fortified Recycled Wood™ hard plastic that’s used to make Virco furniture.

Through a comprehensive resource recovery program since 1989, Virco has processed more than 293 million pounds of recyclables, including:

• More than 1 million pounds of cardboard and paper per year
• More than 130,000 pounds of plastics per year
• More than 2.3 million pounds of steel and other metals per year
• 40 recyclable products in all.

Over the last nine years, Virco recycled more than 124.1 million pounds of wood dust, particleboard, and pallets, and diverted more than 3.5 million pounds of demolition waste from landfill disposal in 2007.

When chairs, desks, and other furniture items need to be replaced, Virco’s Take-Back Program enables recycling of components rather than sending them to a landfill. Virco accepts plastic chair shells, laminated work surfaces and compression-molded hard plastic components from qualifying K-12 schools, colleges and universities; and also helps them find local recyclers to dispose of steel frames from furniture that’s no longer in use.

On average, these efforts helped more than 15 million pounds of waste to be diverted from landfill disposal each year since 1989, realizing approximately $130,000 in annual savings by diverting waste from the landfill.

On May 19, 2006, Virco announced that hundreds of additional products were certified according to the Greenguard IAQ standard for children and schools. Less than a year later — in May 2007 — all models in Virco's new furniture collection for colleges, universities and high schools earned this certification.

"Indoor air quality is an appropriate area of concern for parents, students, educators and the various professionals responsible for managing classroom environments," said Doug Virtue, Virco's Executive Vice President. "By providing two certified lines of furniture that cover a wide range of educational applications, we're helping these professionals make wise choices for healthy schools."

For more on the indoor air quality standard for children and schools, visit www.greenguard.org; while you're there, you can also access the Product Guide, which includes pictures and descriptions of Virco's Greenguard certified products.

U.S. Communities provides a national purchasing forum for local and state government agencies, school districts (K-12), higher education and non-profits nationwide by pooling the purchasing power of more than 87,000 public agencies. For more information on U.S. Communities, go to www.uscommunities.org.