Gearing up for The Reuse Network’s busiest season, founder Mark Lennon reflects on the company’s history and plans.
“2025 was a year of milestones. Two million items provided to nonprofit partners. Ten thousand trucks and trailers sent to needy communities. One hundred million pounds diverted from the landfill. It’s a strong legacy, and a better foundation for much more to come.”
The Reuse Network got its start in 2000 as a recycling cooperative for education and healthcare institutions: The Institution Recycling Network, IRN. It wasn’t long before IRN members started calling with furniture that needed to go away.
Lennon says, “We looked at it and asked, ‘Why aren’t you donating this? Surely there are churches, shelters, independent schools, halfway houses who can use this furniture.’ They looked back at us and said, ‘We don’t have the time or resources to do that kind of networking. You do it. We just need the furniture gone.’”
So Lennon and his staff started making calls, and sure enough there was demand. Not just in the local community, but in regions around the world afflicted by natural disaster, civil conflict, and deep-rooted poverty. From a few tentative shipments in 2002, IRN has grown into the largest facilitator of furniture reuse in the United States. Recognizing the urgency of the need, in 2014 IRN handed off its recycling programs, rearranged its moniker to “The Reuse Network”, and since then has concentrated exclusively on furniture reuse.
“I cut school in 8th grade to go to Earth Day,” says Lennon. “The environment is the only profession I ever considered. I thought I’d be a policy-maker, but didn’t have the heart or stomach for the politics. I found what I’m good at is to see a problem and just do something about it. At IRN, that’s what we’ve done: see a problem, address the problem, with common sense, honesty, strong relationships, and dedication to making it work out.”
Lennon concludes: “My Dad gave me a challenge many years ago: Show that an environmentally and socially motivated business can thrive in the for-profit economy, and you’ll have more impact than a hundred regulators. I think we’ve proven that.”
