“More than three years after the coronavirus pandemic began, about half of the office space in the New York City metro area in June was occupied, according to Kastle Systems, a security-card company tracking activity in office buildings. The hollowing out of the city’s cubicles has raised existential economic and cultural questions, but also a big logistical one: What do you do with all that office furniture?
The answer can often be found in the back of a moving truck — en route to the auction block, a liquidator or, more likely, a landfill. Some of the furniture has found new purpose in schools, churches and movers’ living rooms; other pieces have been repackaged by hip resellers, or shipped across the globe.”
Source
Chen, S. (2023, July 10). Where does New York City office furniture go when no one wants it?. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/nyregion/office-furniture-nyc.html
Analysis
Thousands of office chairs and office partitions have been removed from their spaces in NYC since the pandemic. What a massive waste. Furniture that is highly coveted is sent to landfills. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions just down the drain. It would be wonderful if someone with influence could donate these chairs to inner city schools or Non-profit organizations instead of causes more pollution. At the very least these things could be recycled or broken down for parts. There are many better solutions to this problem, than throwing them away. We need to do better as caretakers of the Earth.
