What’s the Greenest Way to Protect Outdoor Furniture? | Sierra Club

By Jessian Choy

July 20, 2024

Illustration by Kateryna Firsova/iStock

Hey Ms. Green!

What's the most sustainable way to protect outdoor furniture? I hate the idea of buying plastic covers. —Janice Blake, Manhattan Beach, California

Finding nontoxic outdoor furniture protection can be as tough as the sun, rain, and snow on that furniture. Outdoor furniture sold as "waterproof" or "stain resistant" is often coated with toxic PFAS or other chemicals unless it has a certificate proving it's free of fluorine or a certificate from GOTS 7.0 or higher. When PFAS-containing textiles are washed, PFAS gets in water and can contaminate drinking water. And low or zero-VOC products like wood finishes can have chemicals like ammonia (that “new paint smell” that bothers some people). The good news is you don't need those chemicals to make sure your outdoor chairs, tables, and umbrellas last.

The best location for outdoor furniture is in a cool, shaded, dry place like under a covered porch or shade sail, or behind curtains. The second best thing is to move dry furniture to a cool, dark, dry place when you’re not using it. If you can’t do that, here are options for covering furniture.

Luckily, there’s a new textile in town. Renegade Plastics waterproof tarps are tear- and UV-resistant without toxic PFAS, BPA, and PVC. They're still made of new polypropylene plastic, but sometimes the least worst option is the only one available. At the end of the tarp's life, mail it for free with its storage bag for Renegade to recycle it all.

Shade sails and curtains can block UV rays. The catch is many are made of new plastic. So I uncovered ones without new plastic.

Reclaimed sailboat sails are free, green-ish options. You can get them for free from local sail shops or buy them online, such as from Dvelas. Some are waterproof. So they might have PFAS unless they’re North Sails Skylte fabrics. If your sail wears out, Re-sails can repurpose it into all kinds of products.

If you can splurge and just want to shade your furniture, the only all-natural curtains and shade sails I could find are made of jute or coconut fiber. The most affordable ones that ship to the USA are from La Scouritinerie. When you’re not using them, store them in a cool, dry place. At the end of their life, put them on soil to limit evaporation.

If those options don’t work for you, try ShadeSails, the only company I found that uses recycled plastic. Its website doesn’t say if it’s all post-consumer recycled plastic though.

First, prevent wood from rotting and breaking off. Keep the feet of the furniture dry. For example, if you need to put furniture on grass, put its legs on top of stone slabs.

Here’s how to tell if you need to refinish wood furniture. If wood is soft, spongy, cracked, or crumbly, it might have wood rot. So you might need to hire a professional. If painted wood flakes or looks worn, repaint it. If you put a drop of water on unpainted wood and water absorbs instead of forming a bead, reoil, restain, or reseal it.

If you need to repaint or reoil, the greenest options I could find are by Bioshield, one of the few companies that discloses all ingredients. Those products are zero-VOC without ammonia. Before repainting or reoiling, here are less-toxic prep methods. “If wood is gray, your best bet might be to sand it,” Peter Colburn, “resident geek” at Bioshield, told me. “For mildew and mold, use hydrogen peroxide.” To clean dirt off sealed wood, mix equal parts of white vinegar and water per these directions.

Reoil with Bioshield Koloranti Furniture Oil for teak (and other hardwood and boat decks). It’s not intended for soft wood, such as cedar, fir, hemlock, pine, spruce, or yew. It’s made of flax (linseed) oil. “It doesn’t have polyurethane. Polyurethane doesn’t let wood breathe. Wood needs to breathe to prevent deterioration, flaking, or peeling,” Colburn said. After you prepped the wood, apply the oil, including under the feet. Two to three coats can last at least several years, according to Colburn. To repaint, try Bioshield Interior/Exterior Trim and Furniture Paint.

Any oil can combust and start a fire. Here’s what to do after oil gets on rags, steel wool, paper, cardboard, sanding dust, and other soaked waste. Put all that in a sealed, water-filled metal container. Then spread out and dry oil-soaked materials in open air. Contact your waste management agency for safe disposal.

If you can’t try tips above, ask a green exterior wood preserving and maintenance company to do that. Or at least ask them to roll and brush wood treatments because aerosol sprays require lots of plastic to protect windows and plants.

For 15 years, Jessian Choy, aka "Ms. Green," (“she” not “guys” or “girl”), co-created laws and contracts and co-managed SF Approved, a site of green products she helped create at the San Francisco Department of Environment. Now, by day, she serves on the board of Food Empowerment Project and Earth Island. By night, she creates fun and draconian tricks for a happy, equitable, green world and fun and utopian “trips” to be happy, equitable, green or vegan through hypnotherapy, reiki energy work, and sound therapy.You can ask Ms. Green a question by clicking here or talk nerdy to her at @realMsGreen.