Raise your hand if you've bought a cheap piece of furniture from IKEA, then thrown it out during a move without a second thought.
At the World Economic Forum this month in Switzerland, the furniture giant previewed a plan that could put an end to that bad behaviour.
IKEA chief executive Jesper Brodin talked about the company's plans for testing furniture buy-back and rental programs to try and reduce waste, which we think would be awesome.
"You build in a consciousness with consumers that they don't have to own it, but own this collectively in the world and recycle it," Brodin said, according to The Telegraph.
Interest in the program varies by the region, Brodin said. "In London, for example, there are a lot of people who commute and they are not interested in building a second home, so rental there is more interesting."
Does this mean the UK could see a new programme soon? IKEA is already testing the buy-back program In Japan, where customers can sell back sofas for recycling.
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Furniture is the least-recycled item in a household, and the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that we threw out a whopping 9.8 million tons of furniture in 2009. Given that IKEA is the world's largest furniture retailer, it's certainly responsible for a rather large slice of that shame cake.
The company has tested take-back programs in select markets, such as Finland, for about two years. IKEA Family program members in Finland receive a gift card for returning furniture, which IKEA then donates to local charities.
IKEA is working to fight waste and become a circular business by designing products "so they can be repurposed, repaired, reused, resold or recycled in any other way," said Peter van der Poel, IKEA's managing director of range and supply in a press release.
h/t: Domino
