Fast Furniture’s Societal Tax

Fast fashion, like fast furniture, is known for its cheap, low quality, high turnover styles. Conveniently, stuff is much easier to toss out when there’s no real financial investment, sentimental attachment, or cultural barrier.

What’s not convenient, cheap, or fair is cleaning up after our disposable culture. Oakland spent 5.5 million dollars collecting illegally dumped waste in 2017.

Pictured: a couch that could have provided a job for a delivery truck driver, a reupholsterer, or a thrift store employee. A couch that, instead of filling up the landfill with 200 pounds of natural resources, should have provided comfy seating in someone’s front room for 25 more years. A couch that will take precious city resources to remove, while our roads crumble and our teachers need raises.

Costs come in dollars and opportunities.