IKEA In Furniture Re-use Partnership

27  January 2011

According to the Furniture Re-use Network (FRN) four million households cannot afford to replace worn out or broken furniture. At the same time 10m items of furniture are thrown away in the UK every year and it is estimated that three million of these items could be easily re-used; more could be repaired.

Speaking at the FRN's annual conference, "Primed for Big Change", Charlie Browne, Environment Manager at IKEA UK, spoke on "Evaluating the Benefits of Commercial Re-use Partnerships" and outlined the company's re-use partnership with the Network.

The first stage of the project involved IKEA displaying leaflets at point of sale directing customers to re-use charities. By October last year the company had provided a direct link on its website to a designated page on the FRN website, which has resulted in more than 17,000 hits since October.

Browne explained that the next phase is to tackle the logistics of getting the used furniture from the customer to the FRN, and the company is looking at two possible systems of infrastructure. The first is based on a single central facility for processing old furniture, and the second a regional collection service focussing on re-use and disassembly.

Helen Amos