The University of Glasgow Halls of Residence have donated £50,000 worth of furniture to local charity, writes Carmen Paputa Dutu, GUEST Coordinator.

Clearing unwanted furniture from your home can be very tiring. While no-one wants it to go to waste, re-homing a massive wooden wardrobe can prove to be a bit of a hassle at times.

Imagine you need to get rid of 42 wardrobes, 22 desks, 16 beds, dozens of kitchen appliances and more. While that is quite a task, the University of Glasgow has managed to donate £50,000 worth of bedroom furniture and white goods to the local charity and social economy business Second Opportunities.

This has been achieved through WarpIt following the clearance of the Park Circus Place and Dalrymple Halls of Residence.

WarpIt is not only used for the internal re-use of furniture within the University, but it also helps distribute items within a local network of charities and social enterprises.

Second Opportunities: more than just second-hand

Second Opportunities provide furniture and white goods reuse and recycling services, aiming to help tackle the effects of poverty and social exclusion in the local area of Glasgow.

At the same time, their services provide the environmental benefit of diverting furniture from landfills, thus also tackling the increasingly critical aspects of climate change. They have gained the Revolve Reuse Quality Standard accreditation, delivered on behalf of Zero Waste Scotland.

The furniture Second Opportunities provide either for free or at discounted prices, depending on circumstances, aims to help service users from a network of support agencies get back on their feet. The furniture donated by the University of Glasgow will reach vulnerable groups

The items that cannot be forwarded to these groups are offered for sale at reasonable prices in their Furniture Reuse Showroom in Ibrox so that they can reach the local community.

furniture shop

The proceeds from their sales of pre-loved items help them to run their charity and offer free training for a large number of volunteers in areas such as office work, furniture repair and restoration and customer service.

During the past year, with the help of their volunteers Second Opportunities have managed to reuse or recycle 5,585 items, diverted 232 tonnes from landfill.

Student discount

As a thank you for the donation they received from the University of Glasgow, Second Opportunities have now agreed to offer UofG Students a 10% discount on all goods if they produce a valid Student Card.

First published: 30 November 2015

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