University of Sussex Plan to Reuse Their Furniture

Most Universities up and down the country produce a huge amount of waste furniture, however the University of Sussex have come up with a new scheme in order to combat this. The idea is that by setting up a web portal, where the staff that is responsible for the furniture budgets can advertise the office furniture that they no longer require or want. This furniture can then be sent to other schools or other departments on the campus.

This scheme that has been named “ReUSe” has been developed by the Estates and Facilities Management to help reduce the carbon footprint of the university and to cut costs of buying new furniture. As well as this, the scheme also helps to reduce the amount of office desks, sofas, executive chairs etc… sent to landfill which will reduce the costs of disposal.

This scheme supports government rulings, university budget constraints, the Carbon Management Plan and the universities environmental and sustainability policy, making this a worthwhile initiative.

The idea is that schools and departments that are interested in taking part can view the furniture online that comes complete with pictures and descriptions and hire a removal company to arrange a collection and delivery of the items saving them the cost of buying in new furniture. This includes a range of office furniture from pedestals and other storage to reception seating.

The companies that take part in the initiative can show that they are environmentally aware and are engaged in helping the environment. Unfortunately at the moment this scheme does not include IT equipment such as printers or computers; however there are plans to include this in the future. As well as this the scheme does not include the advertisements of personal equipment. If this scheme proves successful we could be seeing it within universities up and down the country.