I’ve had the greatest cloth covered chair for the last seven or eight years. The pump on it broke about two years ago, though, so every time I sit on it I just sort of sink down to the bottom. It’s really bad for your posture and it makes sitting at my desk a real pain in the back (literally).

On Saturday I went into Office Depot to find a new chair since they have dozens of nice looking chairs out on display at all times. They had a little section of “floor models for sale” which I found intriguing because I had never seen this area before. I saw a nice pleather (plastic + leather = pleather) chair with a high back which was originally $99, but was on sale for $79 since it was a floor model. Immediately I knew I was going to buy this chair, but I thought it would be good to take a look around at some other models.

Over in the regular chair area I saw a pleather chair that looked strikingly similar to the one I wanted to buy. After doing a few quick takes between the two chairs I was convinced that the only difference between the two were the prices. The floor model for sale was $79 and the new one that I was looking at sold for $149. With that, I asked one of the employees why the floor model was for sale and he said that the previous owner bought it a few days ago, but it turns out that his daughter was allergic to the pleather used so they bought it back a few hours before I saw it. I told him to ring it up.

He rang up the price tag on the floor model ($79) and as he was typing it in he mentioned that this was a good price because the original was $99. But when he typed in the model number, the machine told him that the original was $149. You know what that means? They marked the tag on the returned floor model wrong! It should have been $99 marked down to $79 – it should have been $149 marked down to $129! So…I purchased a $149 chair for $79. How awesome is that? Plus I bought a plastic floor mat to protect my rug in my bedroom and the floor mat came with a one year warranty for the chair.

I win, Office Depot loses. However, I’ll be back at Office Depot – they’ve done me well!

Plus, as someone who works in a twelve person organization where there are two Prius owners, I can tell you that there is no eco-snobbery going on in my office. My company, however, is moving aggressively into the sustainable energy, eco-friendly market. One of the start-ups that we met with last week is an “upcycling” company called TerraCycle. You may have seen their products at Home Depot, Office Depot, Walgreens, or at Wal-Mart or you may have seen their logo stamped on the back of Oreo or Capri Sun packages (among other places). This is a company based out of Trenton, New Jersey and they are doing some of the best adaptive reuse of garbage that I’ve ever seen.

Their legacy product – worm poop – is bottled in pre-used soda bottles. Their spray caps are models that companies like Windex no longer use that would have otherwise wound up in landfills. Their offices are stocked with used goods from tables to chairs to couches (I can vouch for this as I’ve walked through the place). I encourage you to click on the link above (or the one that is now a permanent part of this blog’s sidebar) to learn more about this amazing company! Click here if you want a review of their bathroom cleaner product.

But to get back on topic – I don’t see any eco-snobbery going on in my part of New Jersey. I think this is because in this state we’re all too busy to have our heads up our asses!