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Green-Works collects office furniture that is no longer required (remember the word ‘churn’ from yesterday?). They take these unwanted desks, filing cabinets, hat racks, chairs, boardroom tables and such forth and sell them, at bargain prices to cash strapped not-for-profits, like charities, schools and community groups. Beginning as a one-man-band nearly six years ago, it’s now employing more than 80 people. Many of whom are “classified as disadvantaged or previously unemployed, and coming from ethic minority backgrounds.” The furniture that doesn’t find a new life in a different office is converted into storage units for homes, or donated for art projects. Components like plastic and metal are recycled. Anything left over after all this, is “chipped for use as Refuse Derived Fuel. As a consequence, 100% of the furniture that we process is diverted from landfill.” In a a strategic partnership with Harrow Green, the UK’s leading provider of workplace change solutions, the consortium had one major corporation donate 3,000 tonnes of office goods. “The same volume, had it been landfilled, would have created a hole large enough to bury 178 double-decker buses.” ::Green-Works

Originally by warren from Treehugger on March 31, 2006, 8:19am