Before the Furniture Store, Recycle Your Sofa

Posted on 09/23/2011 in Special Items, View All ,

Topics: view all, furniture, sofa, recylce

If you care about the environment, you might consider buying new furniture a moral dilemma. Even if the sofa in your living room has burst just about every seam possible, it’s hard not to imagine it decomposing slowly in a landfill. The first of the three “Green Laws” tells people to reduce their waste, but the other two can still be followed when replacing a couch. Visiting the furniture store shouldn’t make you feel environmentally guilty, because you can still reuse and recycle an old sofa.

Not every old couch is a piece of junk, so chances are, other people will want it. If it’s in excellent condition, you can put yours up for sale to cover some expenses of the new one. Excessive age might qualify it as vintage, and often somebody can use sofas with that exhibit a lot of wear. Consult friends and family, put a flier up at a local college, or talk to someone at a charity furniture store like Goodwill. If someone can reuse your sofa, buying a new one remains a green decision.

Recycling an old sofa outright is possible too. Many recycling centers these days accept furniture like sofas, so contact those nearest to you and ask. Some environmental websites, as well, will offer a search function for such recycling centers. If you can’t find one nearby, though, you can do the job yourself. Dismantling a sofa into its base parts isn’t as difficult as some people might think, and even if you can’t use the procured materials, many people find a use for the wood and stuffing that comes out.