Wood Picker

Eric Gellerman is making furniture out of old-growth Douglas fir, 150-year-old white oak, and Indonesian teak -- and getting kudos from environmentalists for doing so. Gellerman is cofounder of The Wooden Duck, a furniture store in Berkeley, Calif., that salvages wood to craft its wares. The environmental benefits range from the obvious -- the company doesn't depend on logging for its wood -- to the not-so-obvious: Much of the wood used by Gellerman and co. would otherwise end up in landfills. The company has dismantled everything from bleachers to railroad ties to make its furniture, and recently begun buying used South African products made from old-growth Doug fir that was shipped to Africa in the 1800s. Now the wood is coming home, where The Wooden Duck will pull it apart and turn it into some of the greenest furniture around.