Coordinated Furniture Pick-Up Pilot

Why We Are Doing This

Bostonians, uniquely so, begin a majority of their leases on the same day. Reportedly, about 70 percent of Boston leases start on September 1 due to the large number of people moving at the start of each school year. With this citywide move each year, many people curb lightly used furniture and supplies. Apartment buildings place dumpsters outside in preparation for September. Garbage collection increases during those days as the City tries to keep up with the volume of discarded furniture. The amount of refuse is so unprecedented that locals colloquially call the week, “Allston Christmas." This is an allusion to one of the most popular neighborhoods in Boston where Bostonians flock to pick up free roadside furniture as they move into their new apartments. 

Much of the furniture, however, does not find a new home and instead goes to a landfill. According to findings from a research partnership between the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM) and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) graduate students, overall annual trash collection increased by 10 percent between 2015 and 2023. However, the tonnage for August and September alone increased by nearly 30 percent over the same period. As such, there is an opportunity to pilot coordinated pick-up in hotspot neighborhoods where furniture is most likely to be discarded. Coordinated pick-up can:

• reduce the amount of furniture going into landfills
• establish a sustainable city-wide furniture recycling practice, and
• provide needed furniture to service providers who work to transition unhoused individuals to stable housing.

What We Are Doing

To mitigate this issue, coordinated furniture pick-up is a pilot MONUM is undertaking to create a sustainable furniture recycling and reuse economy. We're partnering with:

• furniture banks
• City departments, and
• the public to reduce the amount of furniture in good condition going to the landfill.

To do this, we're providing the opportunity for furniture banks to coordinate pickups with residents. Furniture banks will lead the coordinated pick-up effort, supported by MONUM's coordination of communications and resident pick-up requests. We are partnering with Household Goods, a furniture bank.

how we are doing it

Lessons Learned

We hope to learn about:

1. the amount of labor and time it takes
2. how much furniture was diverted from the landfill
3. how much furniture in good condition that furniture banks were able to pick up, and
4. whether coordinated furniture pick-up is scalable.

Check back in the fall for lessons learned!