Please don’t chuck the sofa

Sorry to bang on about the house move, but there’s so much eco-worrying that happens in the fraught time between uprooting yourself from one place and settling down in the next, I just can’t stop…
Here is a sorry tale of some furniture from our old rented place. Specifically, a huge and blissfully comfortable Habitat sofa; a kitchen table, and a giant shiny fridge. All of which I was sorry to leave behind, since we don't have this stuff for our new place.
The new tenants, however, were unimpressed. They told the letting agent they didn’t like this stuff. It is old, they said, and past its best, and they had their own superdooper shiny new versions. So, they took the whole lot to the dump.
This hurts. It’s not just me that would have gladly taken this stuff. When you see how quickly things are snapped up on Freecycle and Gumtree, you realize one man’s trash is indeed another man’s treasure. 

I know it’s a stressful time, moving house; and you want everything done as soon as possible, but there’s no excuse for not looking into an alternative to the dump. It might be the easy option.
The country is crawling with furniture recycling schemes, many of which collect from your door. My editor assures me that one phone call to Islington council in North London and a man in a van will come to your home the next morning. In our neck of the woods, there’s a Furniture Reuse Project which offers second hand furniture to low-income families at discount prices. Hackney Council will collect items for free. Then there’s Free To Collect and Let's Link. The advantage of these swap sites is that the person who wants your old vacuum cleaner has to come and collect it, so you don’t have to bother with vans and transportation costs.

Comments

[Nicola]

You are criticising the new tenants for not using furniture swapping facilities such as Freecycle. You write an eco-worrier column for a national newspaper and you have only just joined your local Freecyle group. You write in Body & Soul that when you moved house 'I felt guilty about the bin bags I was waving off to landfill' Perhaps there were items of yours that others may have wanted, thus preventing them from going to landfill. But you weren't already an active member of your local freecycle group, so it had to be dumped.
You say in above entry:
"I know it’s a stressful time, moving house; and you want everything done as soon as possible, but there’s no excuse for not looking into an alternative to the dump"
pot & kettle anyone???

[dr venables preller]

The stress of moving nearly always precludes avoiding some waste, as it’s enough for most people to plan for 80% of possible eventualities. Your generosity in providing for the next tenants should not be criticised on the grounds of pre-emting their taste or lack of it.

Perhaps a solution to such waste events might be for the charities and recycling schemes which could benefit from the discard to take a pro-active role in seeking collection opportunities.

A card left with estate agents and removal firms asking for notification of future moves could be followed up with a personal call to the mover from the charity offering help before the day itself, even offering to attend if any last minute disposal need might arise.

Most movers would be glad of the extra help, with decisions which distract from the move itself being outsourced to those who might better be able to match supply with demand.

Win-Win.

Sorted.

[Sarah Dixon]

At our local dump there is a "Reusable Items" area where anything thats fine to use (furniture mostly) is taken by some men in yellow jackets and guarded carefully in a sort of pen. You can then go there and look at the stuff and buy it for low prices. I got a set of folding chairs for a fiver, and lots of large plant containers for the yard, around two pounds each and nicely weathered. There always seems to be a lot of abandoned pot plants, it is hard to resist the temptation to rescue them.

This system solves the problem - movers dont need to think about anything and the local council - or whoever those men are - are making some easy cash.

It is astounding what people throw away. I recently saw a beautiful, new looking, giant shiny silver fridge from Smeg or one of those fancy brands and only didnt get it because I haven't got room in my tiny flat. When I finally get to buy a place I'll be down the dump on a regular basis.

[Anna Shepard]

Sarah - can I ask where you live and which council provides that service. It sounds great.
Dr Preller - I agree it would be hugely beneficial if estate agents could be involved in the furniture/recycling process as they often have the last say about whether stuff should be chucked.
Nicola - i see a few items of clothing and unwanted cds in a different category from sofas and fridges - but as I had already acknowledged, no one is perfect in the house-moving game. Unless you are?

[mary]

In our street (inner London), people often just leave items outside with a note. They rarely stay there for more than a few hours.

[dr venables preller]

The local coucil dump (signposted as the 'recycling centre) operates a similar scheme to that described by Sarah. Whilst the highest value items dumped possibly have an Argos provenance, I have in the past obtained some steel angle beams there which I have used to support joists to add a loft to an outbuilding.

When summer morphs to autumn, plastic garden furniture becomes plentiful, especially if disoloration from UV exposure is mistakenly perceived as a need for some energetic cleaning work.

I've seen people dumping hedge trimmings there, but I understand that composting technique is not yet compulsory in the national curriculum.

[Nicola]

I don't remember mentioning that you had to perfect Anna, I am just genuinely surprised that you weren't already a member of Freecycle when you moved.

I have been a loyal 'eco-worrier' reader for a number of years and just find it sad that a journalist who writes about the virtues of Freecycle is not actually and active member herself...

[Anna Shepard]

oh god, I really didn't want to go down this route... but just to firmly close the door on this whole 'why wasn't the eco-worrier a member of freecycle before' thing which I'm now getting emails about, can I add that I was a happy member of a Freecycle group at my last address for some time. Eventually, I asked to be unregistered because I didn't have much stuff that I needed to get rid of - or ask for - and the emails started to clog up my in-box.
Are we all happy about this now?

[air beds]

Hmm, this is good info to have. I never knew that there places to call that did this sort of stuff! I'm getting ready to move soon and wasn't planning on keeping my current bed (really old). Hopefully someone can make use of it.