In theory, I am all about Sustainability. Ever since I was in 6th or 7th grade, I’ve been concerned that our society is heading toward an environmental train wreck, and I’ve wanted to help head it off. Every job I’ve had has been about Sustainability. I’ve been personally responsible for keeping many tens of millions …
I cut school in 8th grade to go to Earth Day. I asked the School Authorities if I could be excused to go to Earth Day, but they said No. So I cut school and went. It was the first time I ever cut school. This was in Philly and Philly had one of the biggest …
Earth Day 2023: We have met the enemy, and he is us. Read More »
Working as we do across the country, we know that almost every organization in education, healthcare, and the corporate world faces increasing demands to demonstrate Sustainability. At the same time every organization is under constant pressure to keep budgets down. When there\’s surplus furniture that needs to be disposed of, this conflict often comes to …
Reuse: Cost Savings, Society, and Sustainability Read More »
Last summer we did a project with the City of Pittsfield, Mass. and Skanska USA. Skanska was the Owner\’s Project Manager overseeing construction of a new vocational high school for Pittsfield. Skanska\’s responsibilities encompassed demolition of the existing structure, including disposition of all furnishings. Skanska was able to auction most of the vocational education equipment, …
From all of us at IRN, we hope you\’re enjoying a safe, healthy, and fun summer. Northern New England is at its most beautiful, our hills clothed in fresh green under a bright blue sky, a profusion of flowers and colors in every garden. IRN\’s reuse program continues to expand and to make a difference …
May and June are IRN\’s busiest months. On Monday, June 4 we kicked off a two-week project at Iowa State, loaded mattresses from Montclair State in New Jersey, and fired up two K-12 projects in Colorado. By the end of the week we’d handled those and eight more projects: corporate loadouts in California and Massachusetts, two more …
A Week in June: 12 Projects, 55 Tractor-Trailers, 10,501 Items, 15 Destinations Read More »
This isn\’t really about Pepsico. They\’re just a nucleus around which to wrap a question, one I think about almost every day: If a product doesn\’t contribute to the sustainability of our species or culture, is there any meaning to making the product \”sustainably\”? Oct. 17, 2016 — PepsiCo, Inc. today announced an ambitious global sustainability agenda …
I wrote this a couple of years ago, and I try to remember to put it up again every year at Mothers Day. I know that Moms differ in their talents, and their caring, and their concern and involvement, but when Moms get it right, there are no better or more important people in the …
To My Mom and All Moms on Mothers Day: Thank You !!! Read More »
I had the opportunity recently to attend a talk by the Chief Sustainability Officer from Keurig Green Mountain, the K-Cup company. If you’re old enough and from New England, you’ll remember Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which was a smallish sort-of high-end coffee distributor in the 80s and 90s. In 2000 they had $84 Million in …
Sustainability and Profit Collide in a Coffee Cup Read More »
In 2017, IRN placed more than 176,000 items of furniture for reuse with U.S. and international nonprofits. These filled nearly 650 tractor trailers with more than 8,000,000 pounds of furnishings. In addition, IRN recycled 1,000,000 pounds of furnishings that were unsuitable for reuse. In a year marked by a long series of natural disasters, furnishings …
2017 Totals: IRN Shipped 176,000 Items to Communities in 27 Countries & 28 U.S. States Read More »
The Beginning: Boston, 2002 A parking lot filled with furniture. That was the beginning of IRN’s Reuse Program. IRN got its start as a recycling cooperative for education and healthcare. As a coop, we had members, and our role was to take over their loading docks and find a home for all their recyclables: paper …
How IRN Found Ourselves in the Furniture Business Read More »
Since 2008, Columbia and IRN have worked together to keep more than two million pounds of furnishings out of the landfill. See more photos of Columbia\’s 2017 projects with IRN We first met Nilda Mesa, head of Columbia’s Sustainability Office, at Greenbuild in 2006. A little over a year later, in early 2008, came our …
How Columbia University Removed 2,000,000 Pounds from their Waste Stream Read More »
Over three weeks starting May 30, IRN completed reuse projects with three elementary, one middle, and two high schools in Las Cruces and Santa Fe, NM. Under an ongoing asset management and replacement program, the districts regularly survey and grade the condition of their furnishings. After accounting for pieces damaged or worn beyond further use, …
Working with IRN: How Six New Mexico Schools Made a Difference in Thousands of Lives Read More »
Many of you won’t know Karl. Karl Thulin, that is, pronounced Too-Leen. Karl is an anchor of IRN’s back office. From his desk in Concord, Karl is the man who interfaces with our charitable partners and handles their, and our, trucks and truckers. Sometimes, like between Christmas and New Year\’s, it’s a pretty easy job. …
Situation Renovating its main campus library, Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT) had nearly 600 pieces of library furniture to dispose of. There were no ready buyers. And WIT needed the library cleaned out quickly and efficiently to meet its construction schedule. So an as-is-where-is tag sale or piecemeal donation to community organizations wasn’t an option, …
Wentworth Institute of Technology Sends a Library to Jamaica Read More »
One of IRN’s most productive and satisfying relationships is with Habitat for Humanity chapters and ReStores. When we started handling surplus furnishings, most of our shipments went to charities working overseas. There was nothing wrong with that, but we knew there is huge need right here in the U.S. for low-cost good-quality furnishings. We set …
IRN and Habitat for Humanity ReStores – A Great Partnership Read More »
In June 2016, IRN loaded two trailers from the Foothills and Hutchinson Elementary Schools in Jefferson County, Colorado. IRN’s longtime partner MeTEOR Education is helping Jefferson County with a system-wide furniture upgrade, and when MeTEOR suggested IRN and reuse as a cost-effective alternative to throwing their old furnishings into dumpsters, Jeffco school district administrators readily …
\”With IRN, we provide an example of just what we want to show our students – a solution that’s good for the environment, good for society, and good for our budget.” Matt Cashman, Director of Facilities, Concord (NH) School District A couple of weeks ago Concord High School and IRN joined forces to send about 150 …
Concord High Sends a Truckload of Furniture to Disadvantaged Kids Read More »
The two political parties need to change, and they need to govern. The Democrats nominated the ultimate party politician. They lost. The Republican nominee was no more a Republican than I am an elephant. He won. Most Republicans distanced themselves from their nominee. They lost. The signs on people’s lawns telegraphed the story of this …
Through the end of August, IRN provided 95,282 pieces of furniture and equipment to U.S. and worldwide nonprofits. These include 42,000 chairs and other seating; 13,000 desks; 10,000 beds and mattresses; 10,000 tables; 4,200 dressers and wardrobes; 4,000 bookcases; plus lighting, appliances, storage cabinets, and thousands of other items. IRN sourced furnishings from 112 projects …
IRN\’s Year To-Date: 95,000 Items, 500 Tractor-Trailers to Charity Read More »
We’re looking for more partners Since 2002 IRN has provided more than 5,200 trailers and shipping containers filled with furnishings and equipment to nonprofit organizations working in 52 countries around the world, and in 47 U.S. states. To the nearly 150 charitable organizations who have been our partners, we thank you for making our work …
In 2015 IRN provided more than 600 tractor-trailer-loads of furnishings to nonprofit organizations in 26 US States and 29 countries around the world. In 2016 we’re on track to far surpass that total. How do we get there? What is it that IRN actually does? Here’s a day in our life: May 27, 2016. On …
I love my Mom, and if you know my Mom you will know why. She is 94 and lives with me. She lived on her own until three years ago, but then she gave up her driver’s license and started to get lonely and sad. So without really telling her I moved her: first herself, …
I recently had the good fortune to travel a stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway through Virginia. If you have never driven the Blue Ridge Parkway, you should. It is one of the two or three most beautiful roads I have ever seen. Drive the Parkway in the spring, if you can, before the leaves …
Around the world, hundreds of millions of children are missing the most basic elements for an education: a desk and a chair. Here in America, thousands of charter and tribal schools, community centers, and other local groups need to find furnishings at the lowest possible cost. Meanwhile, thousands of public schools in America replace old …
School Desks and Chairs – The Simplest, Most Important Resource Read More »
In the fourteen years that we’ve been handling surplus, 2015 was IRN’s busiest. We filled just about 600 tractor trailers with more than 122,000 pieces destined for reuse, and we recycled another 900,000 pounds of assets that were unsuitable for reuse. Where From? IRN recovered usable furnishings from 211 projects in 29 states, from Maine …
More States, More Countries, More Tons, More Trailers Read More »
Then there was the time we were doing a project at a prestigious New England college that will remain nameless. For many, many years this college was all shaded with elm trees. Then the elm trees died and the college looked like a prison. So what they did, instead of planting just one or two …
IRN has a simple mission: Keep usable furniture and equipment out of the landfill, by matching surplus furnishings from organizations that no longer need them, with communities that need them desperately. Click here for a PDF summary of IRN\’s Surplus Reuse Program in 2014 Nationwide Capabilities We work nationwide. In 2014 we completed 207 projects …
IRN 2014: 207 Projects, 24 States, 6 Million Pounds of Furnishings Provided to Charity Read More »
David Koch is in the news again. If you do not know about David Koch, you should look him up. David Koch is very rich, very powerful, and does not like solar energy. Nor do his friends. They hate the idea of solar energy. They spend lots of money to convince people to agree with …
We don’t always get to see or show you the impact that your surplus has improving the lives of recipients. They don’t have the time or means to stop and take photos and write a “Thank You.” They’re too busy getting by. So we’re always happy when we get that kind of feedback. This is from …
At IRN we work with trucks every day. We load hundreds of trucks at hundreds of sites around the country every year. Trucks are our lifeblood; we live by trucks. Just call the office and ask to talk to Bill Yorkell. Bill manages most of our trucks. Ask Bill if Bill likes trucks. Like the …
The University of Central Missouri is home to 9,500 undergraduate and more than 2,000 graduate students on its campus in Warrensburg, a rural community 60 miles from Kansas City. Like most schools, UCM replaces its dormitory furnishings on a planned cycle. Along with room furniture, the school turns over lounge, reception, and study furnishings …
Reuse as Standard Practice at the University of Central Missouri Read More »
I was walking recently through some of my favorite woods, in the New Jersey Pines along the Mullica River. I was on an old sand road, which by the tire tracks sees maybe a couple dozen cars a year. And I saw plastic. Milk jugs. Water bottles. Someone had these in their car. All …
A Waste & Recycling Guy, Walking in the Woods in January Read More »
I went to a Prestigious Undergraduate Institution. It doesn’t matter which one, because in the subject matter of this story I think they are pretty much all the same. They are the same in this: When it comes to sustainability vs institutional prestige, prestige wins, sustainability loses. Here is what this particular Prestigious Institution has …
Click here for Specification Click here for RFP Language Like any project, reuse starts with planning. Successful reuse starts with good planning. Good planning starts with clear expectations and clear information. Reuse is a new addition in construction and property management. It’s new in the furniture and installation business. Until recently, if you thought …
RFP and Specification Language for Furnishings and Equipment Read More »
Working through the Christmas holiday, IRN helped King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, PA, to provide more than 4,500 pieces of residential furniture and equipment to communities in El Salvador. On December 19, King’s College completed purchase of the Ramada Inn in downtown Wilkes-Barre, for conversion into dormitory and academic space. With a deadline to open for …
King\’s College (Wilkes-Barre, PA) Moves a Hotel for Salvadoran Community Development Read More »
We don’t always get photos or feedback when IRN surplus is distributed in Jamaica or Haiti or Ghana or a small town in Kentucky. In most of these places there are no smartphones. Outside of cities like Kingston or Port au Prince, there’s no cell service. Almost no one has a digital camera. People …
A smiling boy in Jamaica, an old piano from Massachusetts Read More »
A Massachusetts firm asked IRN to clean out a retired manufacturing facility. Dating from the 1930s, the plant had been used for production, storage, and administration. Production was shut down and employees moved out in the 1990s. The plant was used for storage for a few years, but eventually this use was dropped, too, and …
Cleaning Out a 1930s Manufacturing Plant: Zero Waste, 38% Savings Read More »
Here’s a pretty typical corporate case study, a project we did with One Workplace in Silicon Valley. The company, a One Workplace client, was moving to a new campus. They took along the best of their furniture. But when they did a cost:benefit analysis, they decided it was more cost effective to buy new than …
Saving Money by Doing the Right Thing in Silicon Valley Read More »
It is not widely known that IRN has one greatest invention. Like, a physical thing, a product, a real invention. It is the IRN Tech Double, which is a dual recycling container for batteries and handheld electronics. It is actually Dana’s invention, but I do the writing and he doesn’t know the password to the …
A Perfect Double Recycling Container for Batteries and Handheld Electronics Read More »
