sorting the sofa

In Finland if you have an old piece of furniture to get rid of which is in condition too poor to donate, your legal options are to either get it to the dump yourself (pickup services are extremely expensive) or to convert it into pieces a maximum of 60x60 cm and sort them like all other trash into recyclable metal, plastic, and glass, or burnable stuff (wood, foam, fabric).

Therefore, this isn’t the first piece of furniture we’ve ever gotten rid of this way. There was a 1980s particleboard desk, an ancient wood desk, and a hideous orange-brown 1970s synthetic tweed sofa and armchairs. All of those were easier to take apart than the enormous Asko (pricey-ish modern well-built furniture made in Finland) sectional sofa we tackled last weekend. ( Read more... )