Furniture Village targets reuse as it reaches zero waste milestone

The retail chain is looking to push its waste activities up the hierarchy by recovering more items for reuse and recycling any remaining materials.

It is working with waste contractor DS Smith Recycling to collect materials through dedicated loads or via multi-stop collections.

Through this new partnership Furniture Village plans to give items for reuse and deconstruction to help local communities.

The company’s group warehouse controller Andy Long says that over the past five years, it has been investigating ways to reduce its impact on the environment, by supporting charitable works via diverting useful furniture returns to local and national charities.

Furniture Village collects over 20,000 items of old items of furniture from customers while delivering new stock, enough, on average, to fully furnish over 1,300 two-bed flats annually. It also works with two reuse organisations.

In the past four years the company has donated 3,500 pieces of furniture to the British Heart Foundation (BHF), the biggest second-hand furniture and electrical retailer in the UK with 725 shops and over 153 dedicated furniture and electrical stores. This donation has generated more than £43,000 of revenue.

In addition Furniture Village has started to work with the Furniture Reuse Network (FRN), a charitable organisation which supports and develops charitable reuse organisations across the UK.

Last year the retailer reported significant cost and carbon savings from using ergonomically designed on-site waste compactors at five of its retail outlets.

Maxine Perella