Narrator: People throw out millions of tons of furniture
every year.
In America, the amount of furniture sent to landfill
has nearly doubled from 35 years ago.
That's about the same time Ikea opened its first US store.
Now, the company is trying to keep its stuff out of the trash.
Ikea plans to make all of its 10,000 products
from renewable or recycled materials.
And they launched a buyback program in 30 countries.
Can Ikea really solve the furniture waste problem
it helped create?
We went to Vancouver, Canada,
to see how the company is trying to make it work.
Katie Dixon estimates about a fifth of the furniture
in her apartment comes from Ikea.
Katie: Our media shelves are from Ikea.
Yeah, we've got the Ikea special here.
Narrator: The Ikea store in Vancouver
has a program that rewards customers
for bringing in used furniture.
People upload a photo online,
wait to hear if their piece is in acceptable condition ...
Katie: A few minor scuffs and marks.
Narrator: ... and then drop it off.
Today, she's calling the store to try
and resell these Kallax shelves.
Katie: We just need to downsize a little bit.
Narrator: It costs $35 brand new.
Katie: I got a gift card. Because there's a promotion
right now where you get double the amount,
originally I would have gotten $15 for the item,
and with the promotion, I got $30 back.
Thank you.
Narrator: The items end up in a special section
of the store after being cleaned up.
Taher Mahmud: As soon as we put it out, it just flies.
They just can't believe that's so cheap.
Narrator: Ikea revolutionized home furnishing
with easy-to-ship flat-pack furniture
made from particle board.
But a lot of its pieces are much less durable
than objects made from solid wood.
So they can end up on the curb.
The buyback service offers an alternative.
Last year, it helped give 39 million products a second life.
But not every customer is successful in using the program.
In another part of Vancouver, Maria Hernandez
also lives in a home surrounded by Ikea products.
Maria: Basically all our plates and bowls are from Ikea.
Plus the glasses, the step stool.
This is also from Ikea.
And this helps me because I'm very short,
so I can reach stuff like that, which is also from Ikea.
Oh, and this light is also from Ikea.
And it's very kind of like, mid-century modern.
Narrator: She's trying to sell back her Råskog
utility cart.
Within a few hours, Maria heard back.
Maria: My item was rejected because of the rust,
and the guy on the phone suggested that I could clean it off,
but I think I'm going to not bother with it.
Narrator: In the end,
Maria gave her blue cart to a friend.
She may have had better luck if she shipped the cart
to Sweden.
There, in Ikea's home country,
a secondhand store salvages furniture
from the recycling center next door.
Ikea opened in the ReTuna mall in 2020
to find out if selling refurbished furniture
in a smaller location is economically viable.
People drop off hundreds of items here every day,
so the first step is sorting.
Here you can see the queue
of stuff that we collected today, maybe around 40.
And that is a really good morning.
Narrator: Refurbishers steam-clean and paint furniture.
Camilla: Almost as clean as the product that we sell
in the department store.
So you're doing really good work, Johan.
Narrator: But not everything makes the cut.
Rejected items head back out to the recycling center.
Sofia: So now it's up to the company, for this example Ikea,
to take care of the item that is donated to them.
Narrator: Ikea plans to keep it going
at least until November 2021
to see if this model can expand globally
and eventually turn a profit.
Ikea's pitch is simple:
Stylish furniture can be cheap.
But that marketing mantra created a mountain
of disposable products.
Ellen Ruppel Shell: For a long time, Ikea advertised their goods
as if this disposability was almost a bonus.
It was a benefit.
You'd get rid of it because you were tired
of it, and you didn't have to feel guilty about it.
In fact, in one advertisement,
they ended by saying,
"The new one is always so much better."
Man: And the new one is much better.
Narrator: It's a problematic model
for a company aiming to become the greenest in the world.
Pia: We are on a journey to become climate-positive
and a circle company by 2030,
which means that we look at
the material we source to shift
to renewable and recycled materials.
Narrator: Reaching that goal
would likely make a massive impact
on the furniture industry.
Over 700 million people visited Ikea stores
by the spring of 2020.
That means that four times more people went
to an Ikea store than tested positive for the coronavirus last year.
In fact, the pandemic was great for business.
Ikea sales increased by nearly half
as people stuck at home
looked to make their life more comfortable.
The company grew to a $50 billion behemoth
by keeping things as cheap as possible.
That's not always compatible with sustainability.
Ellen: When you produce this many goods for this many people
at a relatively low price,
and one of your focuses is always keeping the price as low
as possible,
you're inevitably going to cut corners,
which of course they do.
Narrator: And Ikea's footprint is massive.
According to one report, Ikea is the single largest consumer of wood in the world,
responsible for cutting down a tree every second.
Ikea says that's not true.
But it does use about as much wood
as the entire Russian Federation exports in one year.
The company claims that nearly 100% of its wood
bears the seal of the Forest Stewardship Council.
That's an international body that certifies
sustainably harvested wood.
But last year, an investigation by the environmental
organization Earthsight
alleged that nearly half of the wood Ikea sources
from Eastern Europe is logged illegally.
Sam Lawson: Not only does FSC certification
not guarantee that your wood is sustainably sourced,
it doesn't even guarantee that it's devoid of connections
to illegal logging and much worse.
Narrator: A spokesperson for Ikea Wood Supply & Forestry told Insider
that independent investigations showed
no illegally logged wood entered the Ikea supply chain from Ukraine.
Sam: They and FSC did another greenwash investigation
of one particular supply chain in Ukraine.
It didn't look at other supply chains
in Ukraine, it didn't look at other supply chains in Russia.
And they certainly haven't forced FSC
to make the fundamental changes
to its systems and procedures,
which would prevent it being abused
in the way that we've seen,
both here in this case and also around the world.
Narrator: Critics say Ikea's environmental promises
are more about marketing
than actually reducing waste or improving sustainability.
Ellen: I think that Ikea is making some efforts now,
but I think you have to be very careful
because they always have.
You know, there's good bit of greenwashing by that company.
Narrator: Still Ikea's efforts are better
than the alternative.
Sam: Certainly the solution is not to go elsewhere.
Because the reality is that other companies,
other big furniture retailers, are as bad if not worse.
Narrator: And the easiest solution to furniture waste
doesn't cost a penny.
Sam: Ultimately, you need to buy less.
Right now, you need to buy less.
People need to buy less, they need to throw away less,
and they need to make do and mend more.