22 million pieces of furniture are discarded each year in the UK alone and only 15% is reused. So when Integral were closing down one of our Aztec West offices after staff relocated to a new site, Integral Office Manager Laura Trought looked for a way to help our local community benefit from the furniture we no longer needed.
The circular economy reduces raw material consumption and CO2 used to produce, package and transport new products. Distributing quality kit to good causes also means that those organisations can focus their funds on carrying out core work and helping those who need it the most. And with charities facing a £12.5BN loss of revenue thanks to Covid-19, schools, the NHS and charitable organisations are under immense pressure.
We teamed up with Collecteco who partner with companies across the UK to donate furniture, equipment and materials to charities, schools, NHS Trusts and other not for profit good causes. With over 1,200 good causes on their wish list system actively searching for donations of kit, they quickly found homes for our surplus resources including meeting room tables, desks, chairs, cupboards and filing cabinets.
When we received our final report we were delighted to find that this meant that not only had we donated the equivalent value of £74,240 to our local community, we’d also avoided 17,431kg CO2e and diverted 20,557kg from landfill!
And as Laura says:
“It feels great to know that we have supported 17 local good causes including Helping Victims of Domestic Violence and Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust.”
“We can’t thank the donators enough!” said Tracy Robertson, Administrator for Vine Counselling Services, another charity that benefitted. And Vishwa Wijedasa, Admissions and Business Development Manager at Bristol Steiner School added: “Many thanks for donating these items. They will be very useful to us as a school and we appreciate it greatly.”
For more info on how to find homes for your unwanted items, visit www.collecteco.co.uk
