THE NEW RULES FOR UPOLSTERED FURNITURE DISPOSAL

The way we manage disposal, and the processing of upholstered items here in the UK has fundamentally changed due to new legislation from the Environment Agency that came into effect from 1st January 2023.

Whilst the Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulations (POPs) have been in place since 2007, the Environment Agency has now clarified that it will measure waste compliance against these regulations. The new regulations mean that upholstered office/commercial seating containing POPs cannot be disposed of in a landfill and must be incinerated.

This is a national regulation that will affect all commercial skip hires. Landfill sites will no longer accept upholstered seating, so office chairs disposal and the processing of other upholstered items will need to follow a new process.

This change in legislation has a big impact on many of our customers. Previously hiring a skip would have been an ideal solution for processing upholstered furniture or old sofa disposal. For general skip hire, we are recommending that no items that contain POPs are put in to avoid additional charges when it comes to processing the waste.

DID YOU KNOW?

Placing upholstered items in skips will contaminate the whole skip? This means that you have to pay for the whole skip by weight to be disposed of, instead of just the office chair, sofa, etc