Furniture reuse at Essex

We have a lot of furniture here at Essex for reuse from desks, tables, chairs to filing cabinets and more! As a team we have a furniture reuse scheme to reduce the amount of furniture going into the waste stream which is in a good enough condition to be reused.

Items Being Disposed Of/Removed

If a department is seeking to have items of furniture they no longer need to be removed, in the first instance they should:

• Make sure any items are still in serviceable condition: For anything that is broken, significantly damaged and/or irreparable, this should be disposed of via the usual waste collections provided by Soft FM. Please make sure the item is clean.
• Offer items on Small Ads: To help get items from A to B, try offering them on Small Ads to other colleagues who may wish to rehome them.
• Removal of item by Porters: if an item hasn’t been rehomed on Small Ads then email sustainability@essex.ac.uk to see if they have space in the Furniture Reuse Store. If there is space they will ask you to contact the EMS helpdesk to raise a portering request.

For Items Being Reused

If a department is seeking a particular piece of furniture, in the first instance they should:

• Email sustainability@essex.ac.uk to see if they have the item the recipient is looking for. If they do, they can either organise for the recipient to come and visit the Furniture Reuse Store or they can send a photo with measurements.
• Once the item is reserved, the recipient can then make a request to ems-helpdesk@essex.ac.uk for the Porters to bring their item(s) to them.
• Please do not take any items out of the Furniture Reuse Store without emailing sustainability@essex.ac.uk. This is to help us keep an inventory of items.

Thank you to everyone who has used the scheme. Since 2023, 352 items have been reused. This has saved 5022kg going into our waste stream which is the equivalent of the weight of 5 polar bears!