Charity shop to collect used furniture at Ikea stores

Furniture chain Ikea is working together with the charity shop Les Petits Riens in Brussels and the equivalent Kringwinkel across Flanders to encourage the re-purposing of old furniture, the company announced.

Under the action Save the Furniture, members of the public can now bring unused pieces of furniture once a week to the car park of their nearest Ikea store to give it away to the charity shop. If the shop sells the piece, the takings go to charities.

According to a study carried out by the Swedish-owned Ikea among more than 1,000 Belgians, people have no clear idea what to do with furniture they no longer want, with one in four storing it at home and nearly as many taking it to the rubbish dump.

The first Kringwinkel stands will appear in Ikea car parks next Monday in Zaventem, Ghent and Wilrijk. Les Petits Riens will then show up at the Ikea in the Anderlecht commune on Tuesday.

There are 118 Kringwinkels in Flanders, which offer used items at low prices, much of which has been repaired or improved, and provide jobs for the disadvantaged. Profits in excess of operational costs go to environmental and social projects.

“Last year in Flanders, we collected 63,000 tonnes of goods,” said Danny Vercauteren, director of Kringwinkel Antwerp. “A dozen Kringwinkels are taking part. With this initiative we hope in time to collect another three tonnes a week, the equivalent of 75 customers a week.”

Ikea sustainability manager Caroline Gastaud emphasises that the project is not temporary. “There’s no fixed end date,” she said. “Ikea has launched similar initiatives in other countries, but this is the largest in scope.”

Olivier Baraille, CEO of Ikea Belgium, commented: “We see it as an investment. It costs money to provide this service to customers, but in the long term we think we can satisfy our customers better this way.”