As I write this, I can see, out of the corner of my eye, the old IKEA dresser that is filling the empty space in my bedroom.  It's dead, for all intents and purposes, but I can't figure out how to make it go away. And it is a clear as day example to me of something that had never really occurred to me - cheap furniture sucks. More than that, however, it just may be the perfect metaphor for almost everything wrong with the world today.  Well, maybe not everything, but an awful lot.

We bought this dresser - particle board and veneer - at IKEA about 5 years ago.  It was cheap and it fit, so we bought it. (For the record, I have always loved IKEA.  Great designs, affordable etc.....) But, 5 years later, it is falling apart.  Now, we paid something like $120 for it, so I can't say that I expected it to last much longer, but i had not thought about what I would do with it when it died.

The thought of just tossing it in a landfill really irks me.  I can't bring myself to do it. It would not decompose, ever. But i can't use it.

I don't want to burn it, because I am sure that it is about as toxic as it could be and neither my family nor my environment really need that crap in our air.

This is bad.

I know it's just a dresser, but here's the thing. There are hundreds of thousands of dressers like this in homes all over the world. And when they die, they go into landfills (sometimes after spending a few weeks on the curb, in the rain with a sign that says "free" on them.

The manufacture and production of these dressers must involve no-end of chemical and emission waste, not to mention power, water etc....  The true cost of this dresser, I'm guessing, is a whole lot more than $120 or so. When you factor in the environmental cos of producing and disposing of it.

But wait, there's more.  This thing was probably produced thousands of miles from where i bought it and then shipped here - using loads of fossil fuels and creating mountains of emissions.

And I'm guessing - this is another "but wait, there's more" moment - that somewhere near me there is a guy who is perfectly good at building furniture, the old fashioned way who would have liked a customer.  Now the dresser would have cost ME a lot more, but cost the environment and economy a lot less.

We have a lot of nice furniture in our house, mostly that was handed down in my family for generations, but we also have a lot of random pieces that were put together with allen wrenches that came with the box.....  And now I look at it and all I really see is pollution, waste - little ticking time bombs that I hadn't noticed until today.  

it is a perfect example of a quick & cheap fix mentality that costs us more down the road. But here's the catch - a whole lot of people genuinely can't afford to buy expensive furniture (I'm currently in that group!)

What do we do? Do you have any ideas?  i don't want to make an anathema out of IKEA, the fault is not all theirs, really.... but good gods, look around you, there's a lot of particle board furniture that's gonna fall apart today and tomorrow and the next day.  And most of it will go in a landfill.

I have a few suggestions, but could use a lot more, and we'll turn this little blog post into an article for the first issue of the JUST CAUSE print magazine.

1. Freecycle.  Freecycle is a yahoo group (and I'm sure they have one in your city, wherever you live) that allows you to post things that you are getting rid of AND stuff that you need, and if someone wants / has it, it is free. I use freecycle all the time, though my dresser died and i didn't manage to find one there before my patience with it wore out.

2. Goodwill. Thrift stores almost always have a furniture section - and there's often good "real" furniture in there that people have gotten rid of because it isn't fashionable anymore. But, in many cases, a coat of paint would fix that, and you'd have a sturdy piece of furniture that isn't heading the to he landfill any time soon.

3. Friend and family. Send out an email, "we need a new dresser, does anyone have one?"  Sometimes i think we're afraid to ask for things because of the myth that we should all be able to go do and buy whatever we want, be totally self-sufficient. But that's nonsense, we are not islands, and everything we do impacts someone else. Just ask, you never know, someone may have one for you, free. And you may be helping them out by getting it off their hands. And frame it as an environmental decision, start a trend, be a leader.....

Now, if anyone knows what I can do with my old IKEA dresser, let me know. It's got about another week of cluttering up space before i give up and take it to a landfill. If I do that, i will do it ceremoniously, and make it the last time.