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A Crisis Blinded by Normalcy
When I hear the word crisis, images of destruction flood into my mind. And yet, my research that documented the furniture waste crisis in my neighborhood—when I captured over 50,000 pounds of discarded furniture within 2 miles of my home in 15 months—found that 50% of it was seating. Just like this perfectly usable dining chair sitting innocently on the curb. No piles+no flames=no crisis? If only. Though furniture waste is plainly visible, it’s insidious. Discarded furniture and furnishings are so familiar they’ve become just another feature of city life. I believe this normalization is preventing us from seeing the crisis for all that it is: a complex mixture of…
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Unwanted Furniture Can Help Us Build Back Better
Looking back, looking ahead. Reflecting. Exhaling. Hoping. Readying for the job ahead. What does this moment, this election, have to do with this picture? This discarded, plastic office chair that sits outside of a closed down restaurant, below newly built luxury condos in one of the most expensive cities in the country, that’s been ravaged by a housing crisis, Covid, racial and wealth inequality, and diminished economic prospects? Everything. We must build back better. We are part of the solution.
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5 Questions to Ask When You See Discarded Furniture
A furniture waste crisis applies to well-made and fast furniture alike. Hyper-consumption = hyper-disposal. Don’t forget, Americans throw away over 24 billion pounds of furnishings a year. This is highly problematic. Street furniture is where I most interact with furniture waste. All neighborhoods have it– rural, suburban, urban–and seeing it always sparks more questions than answers. Like:🔸 How do we make sense of the insane amount of orphaned street furniture? Is it laziness? Goodwill towards neighbors? An act of defiance? A cry for help? Resistance? 🔸Why are we so conditioned to quickly label it as illegal dumping rather than explore what’s happening and what’s at stake? Who taught us that?…
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Furniture Waste Isn’t just on the Curb
Some may wonder if it’s still a crisis when the furniture is inside of the bin instead of on the curb. Yes. Yes, it is. Americans throw away over 24 billion pounds of furnishings a year. We don’t even know how much of that should be treated as garbage. Quality or reusability of furniture is not measured in our waste system. What I tend to see, rather, is furniture is disposed of as garbage when it’s no longer *wanted*. Should the decision of whether to bury furniture in a landfill till the end of time be decided not by its condition but by an individual’s whims or an emergency eviction?…
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Furniture Waste Surges Amid Mounting Crises
My bike has been in purgatory since March with the exception of one bike protest. Last week I untangled it from the pile of cobwebs and leaves under which it was hidden. I pumped up the tires and everything. It was so awesome to be moving around again swiftly, in such a familiar, happy way, even with a mask. But, my enthusiasm for renewed mobility and a change of scene was soon exchanged for despair. I wasn’t emotionally prepared for the heaps and heaps of furniture sitting outside of so many apartment complexes. There were also (many) single pieces strewn about, per usual, which is crazy in its own right,…
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Circularity in Furnishings
It was an honor to present Circularity in Furnishings, a story about my passion project, Loved Furniture Lasts, to the Sustainable Furnishings Council on May 21, 2020 as part of their Sustainability Essentials Webinar series. Summary findings: In 15 months, from Jan. 2019-Mar. 2020, within two miles of my home, I chronicled 592 pieces of discarded furniture. Added together, it weighed an estimated 50,578 pounds. Since weight in and of itself is not super useful, I graded them by condition and found 89% was reusable. Takeaway thoughts: This is not a waste problem, this is a lack of investment, infrastructure and imagination In a circular economy, downstream is the new…
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In Honor of Secondhand September: My First Chair
Have you heard of #secondhandseptember? Sponsored by @oxfamgb, it’s a pledge to not buy new clothes for the month of September. To raise awareness of fashion’s environmental and social footprint (it’s pretty humongous), people are encouraged to tag images on Instagram and twitter of their fabulous second hand outfits. Cool! Will this help normalize second hand goods, beyond fashion? The resale market of second hand apparel, according to a report from ThredUP (a large online clothing reseller), is expected to swell to $41 billion by 2022! That would double the size of the market in just five years: in 2017, it was $20 billion. Whoa, that’s a big pie. Tech…
