Introduction

Most people in offices do not give much thought to where the ubiquitous desk and chair came from, and probably less to its final disposal.

The fact is that approximately 165,000 tonnes of office furniture is thrown away yearly from British businesses. Some of this will be the result of wear and tear, but the majority is in perfect working order and its disposal is largely due to changes in fashion, variations in staff levels, or whole office moves. We estimate that over 50% of office furniture sent to landfill each year is reuseable. Clearly this is a waste of both resources and money.

To reduce the impact of waste office furniture, the Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse set up a one year collaborative project to identify and address some of the problems associated with reusing office furniture. The strategy was to look at all levels of the industry – engaging manufacturers, third-party reusers, the charitable sector and procurers. By addressing problems throughout the industry, we hope to begin the move to a more sustainable future. These pages give an overview of the successes of the project over the last twelve months.

A brochure of the findings can be found in the link on the left. Alternatively, find out more about the individual projects by following these links:

• Government procurement of office furniture
• Rental of office furniture
• Remanufacturing office furniture case studies
• The environmental benefits of office furniture reuse
• Designing office furniture for remanufacture
• The role of charities in office furniture reuse

• About CRR
• Links
• Legal
• info@remanufacturing.org.uk
• +44 (0)1296 337165