EXPERT INSIGHT
Creating a sustainable kitchen
Looeeze Grossman, founder and CEO of The Used Kitchen Company, reveals all
Few people are aware that you can recycle your old kitchen, including units, worktops and appliances. It’s a win win situation – you not only do your bit for sustainability, but you also earn extra money to go towards your new kitchen.
Many people think they are already recycling their kitchen, because they’re sending it to a recycling plant. What they don’t realise is that much will be dumped in landfill and the only true way to recycle a kitchen is to sell it on. Around 5 million tonnes of waste wood is generated each year in the UK and only approximately 1.4 million, or 28%, is recycled.
While we may think all wood can be burned or reprocessed, kitchen ‘wood’ is often treated, painted, full of glues that contaminate the recycling process or MDF, which is totally unrecyclable. In order to determine what can be recycled, wood waste needs to be hand-sorted and that rarely happens.
The process of recycling a kitchen is simple. Take a landscape photo of your kitchen, let us know its age and what appliances you want to include, and we will do the rest for you. Interest from buyers ranges from people on a tight budget doing up a buy to let to buyers looking to get more for their money on a high-end kitchen.
We urge both kitchen showrooms and consumers to visit mykitchenpassport.com. This provides a secure and accessible location for showrooms and kitchen owners to store vital information about their kitchens. Owners can create a free online profile for their kitchens, including manufacturer, materials and appliances. This secure location means that everything is in one accessible place when you need information for recycling a kitchen in the future.
People often find it hard to comprehend how a kitchen from one person’s home will work in their own. What you need to envisage is that a kitchen can be reconfigured to a certain extent to fit your space. We always suggest buying bigger than what you need as this gives you the flexibility to create end panels and fillers if the kitchen doesn’t quite fit your space.
Don’t order that skip just yet. Photograph your kitchen before removing it, note down its features and prepare to find it a new home. In doing so you could earn some extra cash to put towards your new kitchen, save on skip hire costs and any tipping fees and be kind to the environment. theusedkitchencompany.com