I grew up in the metropolitan city of Bombay (now know as Mumbai) and it was common for vendors to pass by your house or apartment or dwelling place hawking on a cart, selling and buying second hand wares and collecting items that can be recycled. They hawked just about everything that was reusable: clothing; cooking utensils; stack of old newspapers and magazines etc.
India has over many centuries have had an ingrained culture of recycling lead by the fact that it was a developing with a large proportion of them poor. This ingrained culture in turn created an informal industry classification such as:
· The Bartanwallah (Utensil vendor) – a street vendor who would roam around with bundles of clothes and a bundle of brand new dishes, exchanging one for another.
· The Raddiwallah (Newspaper vendor) – a street vendor who roams streets through residential areas, especially on weekends, offering to buy old papers and magazines. Who in turn sells this to companies who recycle old papers to make bags etc.
· The Kabadiwallah (Junk vendor). – a street vendor who buys things according to their weight and condition, picking up old toasters, burnt out lamps, broken chairs, plastic flowers you name it. Who in turn sells them to companies who can use the raw materials to make something else.
· Then there are Ragpickers - without the phenomenal contribution made by ragpickers, some cities would overflow with unsegregated garbage
It is estimated that India in the past, an estimated half a kilogram of waste is generated per person and a quarter of it is recycled while in the UK – a developed country - around 550 kilograms of waste is generated per person every year, and 40% of that is recycled. However, India has a population over 2 Billion people so the amount of waste created is enormous.
Guardian reports in its article: Untouchable to indispensable: The Dalit women revolutionising waste in India: Massive solid waste accumulation has become an environmental, health and aesthetic hazard for India's cities. Urban India generates 188,500 tonnes of trash a day. In the absence of infrastructure to handle the issue, a large, informal waste-picking and recycling industry has developed among the urban poor. This unpaid, unprotected 'army of green workers' collects, sorts and recycles the city's discards to trade for small returns.
Interesting enough, in recent years the informal recycle industry has been turning many of its waste collectors into entrepreneurs and in certain cities the Rag pickers get ID cards, and recognition as a workforce
There are radical measures being taken in other parts of the world to tackle waste. Guardian reports that in India, roads made from shredded plastic are proving a popular solution to tackling waste and extreme weather. Around 15 years ago this environmentally conscious approach to road construction was developed in India in response to the growing problem of plastic litter. In a report by India’s Central Pollution Control Board it was noted that the plastic tar roads have not developed any potholes, rutting, raveling or edge flaw, even though these roads are more than four years of age.
Closer to home, I read an interesting article in Fast Company on how the newest pair of Levi's started as five old T-shirts. The article states that “Using a new fabric-recycling technology, Seattle-based start-up Evrnu worked with Levi's to dissolve the used clothing into a new, high-quality thread. What is apparent here is that Evrnu and others are dealing with 'throwaway' waste crisis.
Some in the industry have even gone beyond just being careful of what they specify but are interested in new and different kinds of sustainable materials. The organic brick created by The Living, an architectural firm based in New York City is such an example, doesn’t feel anything like clay. If anything, this brick — which is made of mycelium (the vegetative part of a fungus) and organic waste — has the feel and heft of a piece of Styrofoam. Unlike Styrofoam, it isn’t the least bit toxic to the environment.
It is obvious we in the western world we need to do more and especially as we design and manufacture products we need to look at the circularity of the product to keep every part of the product away from the landfill.
In my role as Owner’s representative & Project Delivery Manager at Optum+ working on commercial office projects I come across many opportunities to make our world around us sustainability especially the corporate environments and workplace. Corporations have done their bit by ensuring sustainable initiatives to recycle -paper/ cardboard / bottles / cans etc.; reduce use - paper / waste / business travel etc. and greening of vehicles and these measures continue to gain ground.
However, these corporate sustainability programs have to shift beyond these public-focused green washing of years past toward and move on to robust risk management and environmentally conscious operations - to sustainability of corporate supply chains and procurement.
One area where a huge The opportunities exist in the furniture and fixtures – the two FFs of the FF&E - we specify.
To make our workplaces sustainable we need to change what we specify furniture and fixture in our projects and the advice we give our clients when they approach us to redesign their space. The reason I say is this that invariably whenever a client moves into a new space or remodels an existing space the furniture and fixtures are generally turfed and sent to landfill and very rarely reused or even recycled.
There are examples of firms like Enbridge who donate furniture to charities but very few examples of corporations using re-purposed furniture for their renovations or new build out. ANEW - founded in 2005, -a non-profit organization that’s doing what’s right with what’s left empower companies to reject the status quo of liquidation to landfill, instead offering sustainable surplus stewardship solutions that include resale, recycling, and re-purposing furniture, fixtures & equipment and stewarding them to charities, non-profits, public agencies and undeserved communities.
However, there is huge a reluctance to use re-purposed furniture and fixtures for the corporate re-modelling; renovations nor new build out. Corporations will go at great lengths and spend large amounts of monies to wards greening of the built environment though LEED buildings and other sustainable standards for the built environment but more needs to be done where furniture and fixtures are concerned as cost of FF&E on a typical build out is huge over 12-15% of total construction cost of a new build out.
Few of the reason among others are: the corporate furniture and fixture standard has changed; the model has changed and we cannot find the same model again etc. The reason among others are: there is no warranty on used furniture; cannot find enough of them; they do not go with the concept we have or the colours we picked etc. The chief reason I believe is the inherent incestuous relation between designers of the built environment and the manufacturer of the workplace elements.
In reality it is not that difficult as it is made out by the business of facility or design, especially as due to the economic down turn in Alberta many of the repurposed furniture companies have a large inventory of these repurposed furniture.
Take for example a recent project completed by Bob Dowbiggin of CQ Solutions who deliver repurposed program to provide furniture solutions to a Provincial Distribution unit with:
· 55 employees
· 3-4 weeks’ turnaround to respond and finalize product and price and.
· 72 hours to remove old product & deliver and install the repurposed product.
· Meet design and specification and performance of new product
A challenge no new furniture supplier could handle even with quick ship program. The reason CQ Solutions were able to respond so quickly as:
· The tear down of the acquired product involves a detail labelling and catalogued storage system.
· Allowing quick staging and install of product at clients site.
The end product installed at site was:
· An upgrade to present standards from a 25 year old standard
· The repurposed furniture was less than 3 years old.
· 1/3 the price of a new furniture
· Net Add benefit value through addition features not expected by the client such as: Adjustable workstation hand crank sit stand work surface and accessories rail for organizers off the desk.
· Overall continue and asthmatics exceeded the expectation - Not tired and ugly and wonky
Bob was able to achieve this by providing an expertise on repurposed program that meets Scope; Schedule and Cost.
Steve Howard, head of sustainability with IKEA, at a Guardian Live event in London told his audience that mass consumption has been the culprit behind other “peak” crises in past decades.
We have to admit that we in the North American Continent have a first world problem of our shallow objects of desire are creating a heap of throw away waste. Our western society is drowning in objects that are purchased and thrown away shallow objects of desire.
Steve Howard had joined other sustainability experts for a debate oriented around business about the impact of the COP21 Paris climate talks on the business community. He indicated at this live event that:
“We have an incredible opportunity to seize the moment, let’s reinvent our business models and create sustainable abundance. We will be increasingly building a circular Ikea where you can repair and recycle products.”
Yes, there is incredible opportunity to seize the moment. There are many incredible opportunities to use a repurposed program to shift furniture form landfill. I am at present working on a renovation project of 42,000 sq.ft. for over 90 staff wherein we have budgeted for a repurposed program for a non-profit organisation in Vancouver. A change in corporate behaviour and purchasing is required to increased corporate and workplace sustainable. We’ve not only hit peak stuff - we have also hit peak everything:
Do you have a story on repurposed program implementation to save furniture from landfill, I would love to hear from you.
Philip Thomas - Optimizing Project Delivery Services; Workplace Experience Strategist; Design & Circular Thinking; Evangelist for disrupting the AEC Industry.
I do write on Enhancing Client Experience; Project Management; Design Thinking and Circular Thanking; The Untethered Workplace – The Future of Work & the Workplace of the Future and on Disrupting the AEC industry.
To read more on these subject go to our Blog page on our website: www.optumplus.com