One morning IKEA co-worker Dave Hawthorne was driving his kids to school in Sydney’s inner west and noticing all of the furniture on the side of the road along the way, some of which he recognised as IKEA furniture.
It got him thinking that, it might be possible to give this kind of unwanted furniture another life. IKEA already have a team who work on recovering items damaged instore and restoring them for sale in the “AS IS” bargain section. Dave thought that by having IKEA customers return their furniture to the store the ‘recovery’ team may be able to give it another life, rather than have them end up in landfill.
IKEA has since been working with the collaboration of Councils, Government and local businesses to bring Dave’s idea to life and this week they launched their #tempetakeback service that does just that.
In exchange for a voucher, Sydney-siders can now give their unwanted IKEA furniture a second life by bringing it back to store for it to be sold on to a new customer.
As part of the release of its annual People & Planet Positive report 2018, IKEA is highlighting the importance of fostering a circular economy. New research shows that, whilst 56% of Australians have thrown away furniture in the last 12 months, 70% of Australians would like to purchase second hand furniture - people want to reuse and recycle their stuff, but taking steps to do so is hard.
"With the launch of our Circular Living Pop-up Store and IKEA Tempe Take-Back Service, we want to make it easier than ever for Australians to live the sustainable life they desire"
Kate Ringvall
The process is simple:
- Fill out an online form and email photos of your old IKEA furniture which will then be assessed by an IKEA co-worker
- IKEA will advise if your furniture qualifies for the service, and if successful you will then be offered a price for your piece of furniture
- You’ll have 14 days to bring the furniture to IKEA Tempe where you will receive your voucher
- The furniture will be put up for sale in IKEA Tempe at the same value of the voucher given to the customer
During the startup period the Tempe store has already received a great response, with furniture up to 14 years old being returned and renewed for sale. Dave says they anticipate as many as 800 pieces of furniture returned to the store each month, and that the expectation is for the concept to be rolled out across all 9 stores across Australia, hopefully creating a blueprint to take it worldwide to the network of 400 IKEA stores across the globe.
In the meantime, IKEA has created a Circular Living Pop-up Store at their Tempe store to show how we can get started on our own journey to Reuse, Repair, Recycle our belongings.
You might also like:
