Furniture and mattresses are logistically messy as bulky, heavy, hard to disassemble. That complexity has historically meant they end up landfilled or incinerated. The numbers are stark. Around 80% of furniture and mattresses end up in landfill or incineration. At the same time, 21% of the EU population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion, with 27.5 million people experiencing severe material and social deprivation. There's a troubling disconnect here.
Social enterprises have shown that under there is another way. Used furniture and mattresses can become something more valuable: essential household goods for people who need them, recoverable materials, and pathways into employment for those who've faced barriers.
The challenge isn't whether it works. It's that many organizations are operating well below what they could achieve, not because of flawed models, but because of missing infrastructure, unstable funding, and capacity constraints.
This report brings together what we've learned from 14 case studies across Europe and data from nearly 1,400 locations in the RREUSE network. It documents what makes furniture circularity work in practice - from partnerships to digital tools - and also what is hard - from storage bottlenecks to the declining quality of donations.
The report is part of the Social Entreprises' Role in Furniture and Mattress Circularity project, funded by IKEA Social Entrepreneurship.
Research report
