When it comes to food or lightbulbs, I know how to go green-or at least a pale pistachio. I buy local and organic. I use compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and try to remember to flick the switch when I leave the room. But green furniture? That one had me flummoxed. I pictured tapioca-colored futon sofas and rickety tables made of twigs. Honest materials, but ho-hum design. Boy, was I wrong.

Not long ago, an article on sustainable furniture would have been about one paragraph long. Now my page runneth over. Figuring out which shade of green designers and retailers offer (and which is right for you) requires a little research. Finding "eco-friendly" products that are also "wallet-friendly" requires more digging still. The payoff, however, is huge: cool furniture, a clear conscience, and a cleaner environment.

Major retailers are expanding their offerings for the home. Target carries InModern's Linear line of sustainably certified, formaldehyde-free birch plywood furniture that packs flat (which makes for more efficient shipping) and can be assembled without hardware. Crate & Barrel joins the eco-race with several collections that use sustainable woods: Bento (bamboo), Basque (reclaimed mango wood), and Arbor (plantation-grown eucalyptus). The company has also introduced the Lockport sofa with a sustainable-hardwood frame, stuffing made from soy and recycled fibers, and cotton fabric. Even the stain and fabric protection is nontoxic and water-based.

A big name in home furnishings, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, greens its upholstery with sustainably harvested wood frames, non-carcinogenic foam, and slipcovers in cotton, linen, or fabric made from recycled soda bottles. And the New York emporium ABC Carpet & Home has widened its scope with its own eco-forward brand, ABC Home and Planet. The store's Good Wood tags hang on rough-hewn tables and stools made from reclaimed wood or trees grown in responsibly managed forests. Its Pure Seating Collection is a study in eco-sensitivity: alder wood, natural latex foam padding and feathers, wool batting, organic burlap webbing, and nontoxic adhesives, all upholstered in organic cotton or natural linen, wool, jute, silk, or hemp.

If all this eco-upholstery sounds serious, Greener Lifestyles lightens it up. The Seattle company makes a Jetsons-esque D-sofa in eye-popping orange, built of thumbs-up wood, natural latex rubber, organic wool, and a choice of pillow stuffing: recycled soda bottles or kapok-tree fibers.

More designers are turning to bamboo, a fast-growing alternative to rare hardwoods. The Finnish firm Artek has manufactured Alvar Aalto's famous pressed-birch furniture since the 1930s; its new Bambu collection is even more graceful and fluid. The Hollow line bamboo bench, by Brave Space Design, doubles as a coffee table and stashes your favorite magazines in a slim cubby. Designer Sandor Pratt of North Forty uses a special rapid-milling technology to carve subtle striations throughout his solid bamboo Stria pieces.

Independent designers are also finding green in their own backyards, keeping transport emissions down. New York State designer Chris Lehrecke gets 90 percent of his furniture's lumber locally, then mills and air-dries the wood himself. Another upstate New York company, Staach, turns local ash and poplar into the simple, stackable Cain chair. It comes unfinished, painted, or upholstered in organic cotton with a cellulose-foam cushion, and can even ship flat.

Two Brooklyn-based companies are rescuing their materials from junkyards and incinerators. The aptly named Scrapile makes striking, stripy furniture by laminating local leftovers together with nontoxic, water-soluble glue. Uhuru Furniture and Collectibles salvages woods such as heart pine from New York City buildings and other sources.

Whether their goal is to save money, save the planet, or just push the artistic envelope, designers are using unexpected materials in unusual places. The experimental Godoy Lab created a "fabric" by knitting strips of certified-sustainable wood together with cotton rope for room dividers and patchwork seating. Molo's 100 percent recyclable kraft-paper furniture and room dividers are even more flexible. The honeycomb pieces contain hidden magnets so you can reconfigure a room on a whim. Eco Supply Center also puts paper to good use with its Carta dining chair-made from Paperstone, a recycled-paper product bound with cashew oil, on a frame of local ash. The Richmond, VA, company also sells materials to the trade, including plywood made from sorghum stalks. Stew Design Workshop carved a bench for the University of Vermont from sheets of pressed sunflower-seed husks-another rapidly renewable resource.

Recycling turns the seemingly endless stream of plastic packaging into fodder for furniture. Loll Design's recycled-plastic Adirondack chairs and benches come in surprisingly bright colors that are nice enough to bring indoors. Recycled plastic also pops up in Cohda's RD4 (Roughly Drawn chair), an airy, innovative mesh design that would be perfectly at home in a modern art museum.

After all, that's where furniture should be heading-rather than to the landfill.

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