Protecting The Environment and Saving Money With Used Furniture
When you look around your office, how much office furniture can you see? Chairs, tables, sofas, cubicles, conference tables, desks and bookshelves are some of the common pieces. Can you consider what would happen if half of all the office furniture was dumped into landfills?
It is important to reduce the strain on our landfills. The BIFMA or Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association stated that in a survey that approximately half of the scrap at present ends up in landfills. Most of this type of waste is still in good condition.
Many companies dump their furniture as soon as it gets dated. Although the furniture may be in good shape, it’s expensive to store it, and not everyone is proactive enough to take the time to find a buyer. Its effect causes more problems than meets the eye. The sad truth is that most of this furniture can be recycled.
With a little effort however, old used furniture can be restored and made to look like new. There are plenty of companies who specialize in buying used furniture. They then restore it, and turnaround and sell it.
The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that 300 million tons of used furniture is thrown out every year. From figures based on ten years ago at $32 a ton for dumping, over $100 million can be saved every year. It only takes 40 stations to fill up an entire truck, and just imagine if it was re-used.
For every one pound of natural resources spent on refurbishing furniture, up to five pounds can be saved. For each workstation that is saved from the landfill, over 800 pounds of waste and scrap can be saved. Besides the large savings, using used furniture becomes a no brainer.
There are many different types of used office furniture available in the market. Generally, when people imagine used office furniture, they think of hollow and scrap items. While those would surely fall into this group, refurbished and re-manufactured office furniture is quite different.
Refurbishing and re-manufacturing normally includes repairing structural damages. For example, the broken arm of a chair or a table. Refurbishing and re-manufacturing also includes giving a refreshing look to the used furniture.
The process can be broken down to a science. The bottom line is that it can save the end user a ton of money. You get what you pay for in life, but the first owner is the one who usually pays for most of it.
When you put new furniture and used furniture side by side, the decision is usually easy. China has come out with a new line of office furniture that specifically competes with used. This was a demand change of the market due to the increasing popularity of buying used.
There are many pros to consider when going for used furniture. Beyond saving a lot of money, you can actually do your part to reduce the effects of global warming. You can feel good about your choices in the business world.
Tags: Office Furniture