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That's not entirely true. There is a foam product called Fiber Foam / Airlay Foam that is a cotton material bonded together with Poly material through heat. It produces a foam of around 2.0 pound density.

Matt at http://www.goodnightmoonfuton.com

Has your upholsterer explained why cotton batting can't be used? That's what furniture was stuffed with before foam was developed, and it's still around.

While the National Cotton Batting Institute is hardly an unbiased source on the wonderfulness of cotton batting, they do provide a lot of background information.

Horse hair (mane and tail) was traditional batting in upholstery. There's also kapok, though it might be deemed too flammable these days. And carded wool was used in mattresses, so it should work in upholstery too.

I have the same issue with reupholstering a couple of chairs. I did a search for airlay/fiber foam and found just futons. Any idea where one can find the material?

I've used natural latex to reupholster - it is pricy but extremely comfortable and from all I've read, healthy to be around. I got it from FoamSource.com, you can choose any shape, dimensions, thickness, etc, and it comes in the mail wrapped in dacron, or not. I've been lusting after those $5000 'green' couches at ABC carpet, but this is a pretty good interim solution for small projects.

I'm a furniture manufacturer and can tell you that this is an issue that I've been fighting for years. The current alternative to the conventional foam found in most furniture is, well, there is none, at least not at a competative price point. Latex is a natural substitute but is prohibitively expensive. There is a glimmer of hope on the Horizon, soy based foam is begining to come into the market place in fact many of the foam cores on the market today are in fact 5% soy based, a marginal improvement. There has been some progress made in the automotive industry where they managed to produce foam using ~35% soy base. The problem is the performance charachteristics changed and the product is not suitable to upholstery. So my final piece of advice is to go green where you can, and as far as foam goes the best state to buy it in is California due to the fact that they are fazing out those flame retardent chemicals which have been linked to health problems. So while the product itself might not be green at least it won't be spoiling your otherwise green living room with nasty VOC's.

Can anyone recommend a company that sells high-quality green latex? I understand that some companies ship the latex with stabilizers (not green?), and that some of the latex comes from countries with questionable quality control (purity, cleanliness issues). Seems a pity to spend all that money - with the assumption that one is getting a quality GREEN latex, but to end up with some inferior product.

I am trying to help an upholstery business identify a way to recycle their "trash" (i.e., old foam, fabric and batting). Does anyone out there have any suggestions for industries or companies that can use large volumes of this stuff?