What does the word ‘IKEA’ call to mind? Inexpensive, ready-to-assemble furniture? Of course. Giant blue and yellow warehouses marching towards world domination? Perhaps. Furniture reuse? Turns out it should do, as Leonie Butler learns

Let’s face it, IKEA can be pretty frustrating. The queues, the ‘herding’ around the store, the hunt to find what you’re after in the vast warehouse with just a nine-digit number and the unwieldy trolley. But, after protestations that you’ll never return, somehow, something comes up and you just have to go. And then we find ourselves a little annoyed – at the store for offering a handy, inexpensive option and at ourselves for leaving with more than we went in for. There is no denying it, though: IKEA has become a staple in the lives of we Brits.

Since the 1980s when IKEA began its dramatic expansion, 19 stores have sprung up around the UK. And despite the criticisms of environmentalists about encouraging consumerism, IKEA’s environmental policies are many. Indeed, saving resources is something that IKEA’s Sustainable Development Manager Charlie Browne says is at the heart of the company, something of great importance to founder Ingar Kamprad from the farm Elmtaryd in the village of Agunnaryd (IKEA... geddit?). As early as the 1970s, Kamprad wrote: ‘Waste of resources is a mortal sin at IKEA.’ What’s more, saving resources makes financial sense.

For instance, IKEA’s big blue bag was an instant hit with the customer (how many have you got in the attic?) and made great savings for the company, too. In the same vein, Browne explains: “Taking two centimetres off the width of a sofa allowed us to get something like six more onto a trailer. And now we’re flat packaging sofas. It’s a fairly basic sofa, but it reduces those bits of air that you have to transport.”

As well as taking care of its ‘in-house’ environmental policies, so to speak, IKEA is providing customers with disposal routes for furniture that’s being replaced. Understanding the need for a take-back system is the easy bit; developing one that adheres to the waste hierarchy is trickier. “Other people are offering take-back schemes, but they are right down at the bottom of the waste hierarchy. It’s taken away and it’s shredded for recycling. We did look at a central recycling facility, but being spread over the UK the logistics of reverse flow is quite difficult, so we wondered what else we could do. We thought we could deal with a local waste contractor – put a container in our rear yard and collect, charge the customer, and the supplier would take them away and recycle them. Or, we go up the waste hierarchy into reuse.”