With bad impacts on the environment due to our societal habits, people are starting to notice they need to make a change in order to protect our planet and future generations enjoying it. One large change individuals and businesses need to start making is recycling, upcycling and repurposing unwanted goods.
Why is waste bad for the environment?
Many materials take years to breakdown and decompose, leaving us with less and less space to dump our unwanted items. Decomposing products can also cause damage to the environment, with some dangerous chemicals being found in these products, this can cause soil degradation. If these harmful chemicals that can now be in the soil, make their way to any water bodies this can cause water pollution.
A solution some companies have found to speed up the process of decomposition, is to burn these unwanted products. This can then cause further pollution in the form of air pollution, as gases produced during combustion end up polluting the air.
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What are the differences between recycling, upcycling and repurposing?
Recycling is the process that involves breaking a product down to its basic, raw materials so it can be formed into new products.
Upcycling is a practice where you reinvent unwanted materials. By transforming these unwanted materials into something useful, it saves the product going to waste.
Repurposing involves using a product to serve another purpose, this saves the product from going into landfill.
Upcycling and repurposing provides us with an environmentally friendly alternative to dealing with our waste issues.
High Office Furniture Waste
Each year there is a large amount thrown away from businesses, generating a significant amount of wasted resources. This is around $93 to $100 million in disposal costs each year by said companies.
Positives Of Upcycling And Repurposing
These two methods help to reduce the amount of waste that is entering landfill sites. Often, products like furniture are made to last longer than we tend to keep them, especially high-quality pieces. As a business or individual, spending more on higher quality furniture that are built to last will be better for the environment. Keeping them for longer will also reduce our use of resources and energy that is used to create new, sometimes unnecessary, pieces.
Businesses, buying a timeless, ergonomically designed office chair will most likely result in you keeping it for longer meaning you save money.
A reduction of waste for items that don’t need to be thrown away yet, will save you money, energy and resources. However, if you do feel like you want to throw away items before they need to be, consider donating them. Charities can benefit from this by raising money from selling the items or donating them to people in need.
Ultimately, the main positive is you’ll be helping the environment, saving money and time shopping around for new, unnecessary items of furniture.
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