by Kevin Burton
It is garage sale season in my hometown. The new-to-you possibilities are fun to think of.
But one company has taken this concept beyond fun to sublime.
What if the furniture that is a little too old to live up to the image that major companies seek to project, but is still perfectly good stuff, what if that furniture could go to smaller companies or to poor families?
Well in Los Angeles it can, thanks to a company called ANEW. Their tagline is “doing what’s right with what’s left.”
I heard about ANEW (of course) on the Good News Network.
“Founded on Earth Day in 2005 with a vision to work with corporations to divert their surplus furniture into the hands of communities, instead of piling up in landfills, ANEW is celebrating 20 years of environmental stewardship,” reads a story on the GNN website.
“Founder Rose Tourje had a bleak realization during her successful career in commercial interior design when one day she witnessed furniture actually being hurled out the windows of an office building, crashing to the pavement below, where fork lifts were filling dumpsters headed straight to the landfill.”
“She thought, if this is happening with a large public company in Los Angeles, this must be happening everywhere.”
“Tourje found this unacceptable and irresponsible, and after 30 years of a design career, she decided to leave and set a new industry standard.”
“That’s how ANEW was born, with the goal of extending the life-cycle of office furniture through reuse, resale, repurposing, and recycling—all while benefiting nonprofits, public agencies, and the poor.”
“ANEW educates by raising awareness about the issues regarding landfill and construction & demolition waste, a primary component of the waste stream,” reads the ANEW website. “Our practice of Surplus Stewardship diverts items from landfill and back to the community. Surplus Stewardship furthers corporate citizenship, social responsibility and environmental sustainability”
I can only hope other organizations around the country are doing similar work.
I’m even more fired up about people who do the same sorts of things with food – identifying and capturing food seen as waste by restaurants, but that is still good, and making sure it gets to people who can use it.
And all it takes is for people such as Tourje to find waste amid want unacceptable, take action and make it happen.
“ANEW is now a leader in inspiring companies to see waste differently—and work together to grow circular economies that benefit communities, businesses, and the natural world,” their website reads.
“Through more than 435 projects, ANEW has partnered with companies such as Toyota and Kaiser and organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill, helping them achieve their social and environmental sustainability goals.”
“We have enabled over 600 recipient organizations to allocate their financial resources toward sustaining and expanding their essential services, ultimately benefiting thousands of people in local communities,” ANEW wrote in their 20-year milestone press release. Since 2015, they’ve stopped more than 8,000 tons of waste from entering U.S. landfills..
Last year, ANEW launched the first of two accredited CEU courses to help architecture and design professionals learn how to apply circularity in order to strengthen local economies, manage resources, and reduce waste, according to the GNN story.
“And their independently audited projects show measurable results—with positive impacts on both the environmental and social fronts—changing the world, one desk and conference table at a time,” the GNN story reads.
I applaud ANEW’s efforts, but must admit I won’t be doing anything so high-minded this weekend during our town’s citywide garage sale.
A friend has offered to sell things for us at her sale, and how cool is that? We get rid of some things without having to buy a sale permit or go to the trouble of labelling everything, not to mention sitting in the garage all day to make a very few bucks.
Another good sign: the local weather forecast is calling for thunderstorms all week, except for Friday and Saturday, when most of the sales will be going strong.
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