THE DISPOSABLE FURNITURE CULTURE


Re-using your carrier bags seems to be a big thing at the moment, but how about re-using your furniture? Landfill sites are stuffed with furniture that people have thrown out to buy new. In many cases upholstered furniture is chucked which has far better made frames than you can buy now, and these frames are in perfectly good condition. The current legal lifespan of a piece of new furniture is three years. After that, it is deemed to have done its job. Just suppose everybody chucks their sofa and armchairs after five years, to buy new. That is 60 million sofas and approximately 120 million armchairs going into the civic amenity sites every five years. The wastage is enormous, and far more bulky than carrier bags. The synthetic fillings used for modern upholstered furniture are not easily biodegradable, and it costs too much to strip them into component parts so the whole thing goes into the crusher, and then into the landfill site. Oil is used to make these synthetic fillings, whereas the old natural fillings, such as horsehair, grasses, straw, and even the modern coir fibre made from coconut fibres, did not require a finite energy source to collect them.

We have recently heard on the news about the law suit against three large furniture manufacturers for importing upholstered furniture from China containing sachets of dimethyl fumarate to stop the filling going mouldy during transit. This has caused severe burns and skin eruptions on the people using these sofas. Why would we want to buy furniture that has to be protected from going mouldy even when brand new? Why would we want to run the risk of severe skin rashes from our upholstered furniture just because it is ‘new’ and ‘cheap’?

We all have a choice, to restore our old furniture, or to chuck it and buy new. However, if we really want to reduce the waste our society creates, we should look at our furniture first, rather than getting the ‘feel good’ factor from re-using carrier bags. It may cost as much to have an old piece re-upholstered as to buy new, but there are advantages. We are not creating unnecessary waste, the re-upholstered piece is likely to last far longer than a ‘new’ piece, the frame is liable to be of much better quality than in a modern piece, with proper joints rather than just stapled together, and we have far more choice as to the fabric and style of the re-upholstered piece than if we just buy it ‘off the peg’.

The same applies to pieces of non-upholstered furniture, which are thrown away because they are dark, or stained, or the glue has perished and the joints are wobbly. Most of these pieces are well made, with proper joints out of well-seasoned wood. Re-finishing can remove scratches and stains and change the colour of the wood according to your taste. Re-gluing the joints creates a far sounder piece of furniture than modern screw-fixed furniture.

If the size or shape of a piece of furniture does not fit our home, then the answer is to sell it, but if it fits in, but is damaged or worn, then, for the sake of the planet, and for the sake of the history of British furniture, we should consider restoration rather than rushing down to the skip with it.

Rachel Clive B.A, Dip.M, O.C.N Furn. is a founder member of Bentley & Clive, a Friend of the British Antiques Furniture Restoration Association and also writes for their magazine.