We’re all familiar with the statistics: approx. 8.5 million tons of office furniture ends up in US landfills every year.
Did you also know that manufacturing office furniture consumes a significant amount of energy and materials, with 80-90% of these valuable resources being lost after a short period of use? Once disposed of these furnishings usually end up in landfills.
What’s truly concerning is the speed at which furniture is being discarded. Leases are shrinking, less than 10% of office furniture is used beyond the first office it inhabits, and this year alone, tenants in the US vacated 40-million more square feet of office space than they occupied. With the rise of hybrid workspaces and renovations, this leads to substantial waste, especially in the form of desks, workstation surfaces, panels, and benching systems.
The story is the same everywhere: what do we do with all this excess furniture?
The End-of-Life Dilemma
Work surfaces are typically made from MDF, which is comprised of wood fibers from shavings and other by-products. Wheatboard, an alternative to MDF or particleboard, is made from sustainable, annually renewable agricultural fibers, offering a greener option for work surface substrates. While both materials are resource-efficient, they present a unique challenge: complicated end-of-life processing due to the added laminates used for sealing and finishing.
Recycling work surfaces involves labor-intensive processes such as removing all plastic and metal pieces, sanding each item to remove existing laminates, and then shredding the remaining product for industrial or domestic use, such as animal bedding, wood composites, soil conditioner, insulation material and reconstituted panels.
Although feasible, this method is often not scalable due to the time, expense, and specialized facilities required. Another more common disposal method is incineration for energy recovery, which poses environmental and health risks, including:
- Emitting toxic pollutants such as formaldehyde, VOCs, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter, contributing to air pollution and potential health hazards
- Requiring high temperatures for the effective breakdown of hazardous compounds, which necessitates specialized facilities with pollution control systems
While incineration can reduce waste volume and potentially generate energy, the process must be carefully managed to minimize emissions and ensure compliance with environmental regulations to prevent adverse impacts on air quality and public health.
Additionally, the cost to ship no-longer-needed work surfaces to recycling facilities that provide this service can be high, often presenting financial barriers that deter companies from taking environmentally responsible actions, despite their best intentions.
Turning Discarded Desks into Eco-Designer Office Pods
In the typical office furniture economy, the process is linear: raw materials are taken from natural resources to make new products that are then eventually disposed of as waste. As champions for sustainability, Envirotech uses the circular economy model to help reduce carbon emissions, air pollution, and exposure to harmful toxins by reusing materials already in existence. Every year, Envirotech acquires high quantities of high-quality workstations and cubicles from various projects across North America where they are stored in our facility in the Greater Toronto Area. Work surfaces have been reused as part of our remanufacturing process for over 25 years, but never in an office privacy pod.
Until now.
Earlier this year we jumped at the chance to collaborate with the team at the Belgium founded company JUUNOO to install Envirotech previously owned worksurfaces into the bases of their office pods helping businesses not only reduce waste — but rethink their approach to office furnishings.
JUUNOO is a leader in sustainable innovation, from sourcing materials responsibly and ethically and providing transparent Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for their products. They also offer an impressive buy-back warranty program.
Their pods are also unique in that they have a modular design, so every component can be interchanged, reconfigured, disassembled, and reused so waste is minimized. The journey of incorporating work surfaces into privacy office pods began with a creative brainstorming session at their New York showroom where the team was determined to take their commitment to circularity further by finding ways to embed waste materials into pod construction.
The prototype involved several steps. First, Envirotech sourced work surfaces either from existing inventory or from projects on-sit and cut them to size in Envirotech’s warehouse. They were delivered to JUUNOO in New Jersey where their pods are assembled, and the surfaces were carefully assessed for structural integrity. Their engineering team worked diligently to adapt their existing pod designs to accommodate these recycled materials, ensuring that the new baseplates met all necessary structural and safety requirements. After a rigorous development and testing phase, the teams created a seamless incorporation of recycled materials from Envirotech that maintains the high standards of JUUNOO’s products while significantly reducing waste and environmental impact.
With six standard sizes available, including the JUUNOO Focus 1 Office Pod shown above, JUUNOO office pods provide an excellent value and can be shipped to site in as little as three weeks. With premium acoustics, ventilation, and lighting, these office pods embody the principles of innovation, modularity, and circular economy principles. JUUNOO also offers a robust range of glass and solid demountable walls, creating a robust commercial interior system that is modular, aesthetic, and truly sustainable.
By using JUUNOO products, you can decrease the embodied carbon of a project by up to 90% and their systems can lower the embodied carbon of a single space up to 63% compared to competitive systems!
More details on JUUNOO innovative meeting pods and phone booths can be found here.
Blending Privacy, Functionality, and Sustainability for the Future
Transforming one item into another is a positive step towards sustainability as it extends the life of materials that would otherwise be discarded. This approach not only helps preserve our natural resources but also minimizes environmental impact by cutting down on the need for new raw materials and the energy-intensive processes involved in their production.
Beyond environmental gains, repurposing promotes creativity and innovation in design, encouraging fresh perspectives on how materials can be used in unique and imaginative ways. Economically, it can be a smart choice too, often saving costs compared to manufacturing entirely new items. Ultimately, embracing transformational reuse fosters a culture of sustainability, inspiring us all to make a meaningful impact on our world.
Our partnership with JUUNOO has already made a measurable impact on waste diversion and carbon reduction. By reusing existing work surfaces, we have diverted significant amounts of waste from landfills and reduced the need for new raw materials, contributing to lower CO2 emissions.
Businesses that embrace innovative approaches like this demonstrate leadership in corporate social responsibility and in doing so, can make tangible strides towards a greener future while managing operational expenses effectively.
We are excited about the potential of JUUNOO pods to revolutionize modern workspaces and are currently working on integrating landfill-destined work surfaces into JUUNOO’s wall units – keep posted for updates!
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WORKING ON A PROJECT?
- Complete fit outs + office refreshes
- Reconfigurations or new spaces
- Space planning + design
Consider JUUNOO office pods into your project plan. Connect with Envirotech to get a quote.
You can also see our pods in person in Envirotech’s Toronto and Mississauga showrooms. Book a tour with us here.
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JUUNOO | Sustainable Solutions for the Modern Workplace: From Office Pods to Demountable Walls and Glass Partitions, JUUNOO’s catalog of sustainable products offers premium acoustics, ventilation, and lighting for focused work, confidential calls, and productive meetings. Reach out to JUUNOO here.
