Discarded furniture constitutes a significant share of bulky waste directed to landfills and incinerators each year in the USA. This has implications for resource consumption, social equity, and other sustainability concerns. Reuse of furniture provides a strategy for waste prevention and enables product life extension and offset of new consumption as part of a circular economy (CE). Using online platforms (e.g., Facebook, Craigslist), users can connect directly to acquire and/or discard used furniture items that would otherwise be disposed. Much of the existing literature focuses on an individual's motivations for disposing/acquiring used products, and not on the mechanics and/or practice of reuse. This study explores reuse practices, perspectives, and individual engagement in the local reuse of furniture through user-to-user (U2U) online platforms using two data sources and methodologies. To understand the characteristics of used furniture available for local reuse via U2U online platforms, web-scraping was conducted on Craigslist posts over a four-month period to collect data regarding furniture type, condition, and location. In parallel, individuals were invited to complete a questionnaire regarding their use of U2U online platforms for acquiring/disposing of used furniture, perceived convenience of using online platforms, and the extent to which reuse transactions were 'local'. This study found that the product type, perceived convenience, and access to information played key roles in the local reuse of furniture. This study has important implications for sustainable consumption systems in a local circular economy. / Master of Science / Every year, millions of tons of furniture is disposed as bulky waste in landfills. The discarded furniture can cover eight thousand football fields with couches, mattresses, and tables. Previous studies show about half of the discarded items can be used again. Reuse is one of the solutions to the furniture waste problem. Depending on where you live, it is now possible to easily match someone who is discarding furniture with someone else who wants to obtain it. This is how the internet enables anyone to participate in furniture reuse. The study looks at how and what types of furniture is being reused locally, i.e., acquired, and discarded for reuse all within twenty-five miles or lesser. The study also seeks to answer how people perceive the use of online platforms for the local reuse of furniture. The research shows that the type of furniture (e.g., chair, table, mattress), convenience of reuse through online platforms, and information about the used furniture item are central to furniture reuse. The results help in understanding what factors promote or hinder the local reuse of furniture, which is important for scaling local reuse. Increased participation in reuse is important for social, economic, and environmental sustainability.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/110915 |
| Date | 23 June 2022 |
| Creators | Umashankar, Viverjita |
| Contributors | Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Russell, Jennifer D., Novich, Laura, Stern, Marc J., Bush, Robert J. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/x-zip-compressed |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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