Recycling & take-back

How we handle your old furniture and our packaging, with whom we partner, and what we cannot accept.

Old furniture deserves a second life

UK households throw out about 670,000 tonnes of bulky waste furniture each year. Most of it could have been reused or recycled. Here is what we offer at the point of delivery.

Take-back of your old item

When we deliver a like-for-like replacement (sofa for sofa, bed for bed, dining table for dining table), we will collect the old item for free of charge for re-use partners.

The item must be intact and clean.
It must be physically removable on the same trip (we can't carry it down three flights solo).
We pass it to Orkney Furniture Project, who refurbish and rehome where they can.
If it's beyond reuse, we route to Bertha Park materials recovery facility.

Packaging take-back

For new deliveries to your door, we will take cardboard, polystyrene blocks, and pallet wrap back at the door — it returns to our depot for recycling. Just ask the delivery team.

Recyclable materials

Material	End-of-life route
Solid timber, plywood, MDF	Chipping plant, re-used in board manufacturing
Cardboard	Orkney commercial paper recycling
Polyethylene wrap	Soft-plastics collection
Expanded polystyrene	Densifier in Inverness — we batch and send
Foam and fibre fillings	Carpet-underlay manufacture (commercial), landfill (domestic)
Metals	Orkney scrap dealer
Mattresses	Component recycling in Aberdeen — we transport monthly

What we won't take

Items that are wet, smoke-damaged, infested, or fall outside our delivery van's capacity. Council bulky waste collection or local recycling centres handle these directly.

If you're not buying from us

You can drop off small items of clean furniture during showroom opening hours — we'll route them through the same partners. Larger items, please call ahead.

Last updated 2026-05-26 · J & M McEwen, Kirkwall