The Benefits of Recycled Office Furniture Are Good For Business

2009-06-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

Recycling is now a common custom in many homes and businesses across America. Newspaper, glass, aluminum and plastic are all disposable materials that find their way back into the production cycle, saving our society much needed resources and peace of mind. But many consumers are uninformed of other alternative products that can be recycled, such as office furniture. Most office furniture endures a long life span, but typically get replaced before they get worn down or outdated. Instead of replacing the fabric or restoring the color, offices administer a face-lift by banishing old furniture to the dregs of dumpsters or the solitude of storage. The EPA estimates that businesses trash approximately 3 million tons of furniture a year, with a disposal cost of almost $100 million. Every 40 cubicles that are re-manufactured keeps one tractor-trailer load of furniture out of the landfill. Recycling furniture not only benefits the environment, but it benefits your budget.

Today, recycling worn office furniture diverts its out of the landfill and into the consumer markets by remanufacturing, refurbishing and restoring it to ‘like new’ condition. Worn parts are replaced, repainted, refinished, replaced and reupholstered. Not only will recycled furniture look as good as new, but could provide an average savings of 30 to 50 percent to any buying customer. If you are supplying your own furniture, the savings could be even more substantial. You have added value to your furnishings, instead of incurring additional expenditures. You also won’t have to pay storage or waste fees for outdated furniture. Recycling also sets an example for the rest of your company in managing assets wisely and encouraging conservation and waste reduction. Making these corporate goals will only strengthen your company’s financial and cultural message.

There are several options available to consumers when purchasing recycled office furniture: remanufactured, refurbished, and re-used. Remanufactured office furniture is recycled furniture with added value. This means the products were completely disassembled, inspected, cleaned, repaired or replaced, reassembled and refinished to ‘like new’ conditions. Refurbished office furniture has added value by being touched up before returning to the market. Reused office furniture is recycled furniture that is returned to the market “as-is”, no repair or improvement is done to its appearance. Even new furniture that is purchased directly from the original equipment manufacturer and resold using parts that have never been used before is also considered recycled.

Remanufactured furnishing outperforms new furniture and provides aesthetic benefits in many ways. Instead of a pre-determined selection of colors, fabrics and finished, you can design your furniture and a recycler/remanufacture can help you achieve it. If you are redecorating your office but want to keep your furniture, manufacturers offer the flexibility of limitless ranges of colors, fabrics, and finishes to choose from. They can also mix and match recycled furniture with your current set-up to provide consistent design. If you are looking for custom work, recycled furniture is a great way to stay within your budget while complimenting your taste.

2009-06-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

The American economic climate has come to a critical point where businesses are looking for new ways to reduce, reuse and recycle in order to become more sustainable and less harmful to the environment. Everyone wants to erase their carbon footprints, and many organizations are amerced in current trends of the social responsibility and ethical investment in environmental causes to help do so. Not every business can afford to adopt corporate sustainability programs as quickly as others, but there are many ways to improve sustainability without breaking another bank. Investing in recycled office furniture is a wonderful way to help the environment by conserving natural resources, energy usage, and reducing solid waste stream and pollution.

When you invest in recycled office furniture, fewer raw materials are being used. Remanufacturing conserves energy and overall natural resources. Office furniture recycling extends the life cycle of resources already in circulation, such as aluminum, steel, plastics, fiber and wood. Recycling uses these resources over and over again to the fullest extent possible. Experts in the industry estimate that for each pound of natural resources used through remanufacturing, five to nine pounds of original raw materials are completely conserved.

When recycled, the products used in office furniture, as well as the natural resources, are diverted from the solid waste stream. It is estimated that 3 million tons of office furniture are discarded each year. Fabrics in panel systems tend to wear out or the colors become outdated. By remanufacturing the furniture, the fabrics can be replaced and updated. The office furniture will be returned to market for a second life cycle. This results in fewer products filling up landfill space and ruining the environment.

Recycling office furniture conserves energy used for labor and manufacturing. The amount of labor and energy required to remanufacture furniture is 85 to 95 percent less than what is required to produce a new product. Since the recycled furniture has already been manufactured, remanufacturing saves an enormous amount of energy required for production. Especially when metals are involved and are kept out of the re-smelting process.

Recycling reduces pollution caused by manufacturing furniture, which initially adds dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter into the environment. By reducing the amounts of these contaminants, global warming, acid rain, smog and other forms of air pollution will be reduced.

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The Benefits of Recycled Office Furniture Are Good For Business