Shaler quoted in Press Herald feature on Adirondack chairs

Stephen Shaler, the director of the School of Forest Resources at the University of Maine, spoke with the Portland Press Herald for a feature on Adirondack chairs. The article looked at the different types — plastic and wood — that are available, as well as their environmental impacts. One important factor that should be included in a well-rounded life cycle analysis of a chair is how much use it gets, according to Shaler. “You have to define what the functional unit is,” he said. In this case, it would be the number of hours of use the chair gets or the number of enjoyable hours you spend in the chair, according to the article. “You never use the plastic one, so maybe it gets used for three hours, and the wood chair gets used for 30 hours,” Shaler said. It’s getting 10 times the use, and that increased functionality should be a factor in the overall equation about the chair’s impact. The chair you love will probably stick around the property longer than the chair you merely like, the article states.