One Man’s Trash

Aesthetic trends these days mutate and repopulate collective culture like an invasive species, dominating social media before their short life spans run their course, they’re replaced, and fade into oblivion—found dead in a landfill ditch or left astray with the trash on Monday morning. The “fast” economy is not a new topic in the lexicon of sustainability or even quality, whether for fashion or food. Trends drive markets and inspire consumer audiences, but we know with convenience comes ethical compromise. When you’re learning to shop consciously, you often discover blindspots. Forget about oat milk and where you bought your outfit for a second: what do you know about the piece of furniture you’re sitting on right now?

Fast furniture is less talked about than fast fashion, but you’re probably more familiar with it than you think. Maybe your puzzle-piece Ikea desk crumbled to bits after only six months, or your millennial-pink “girlboss” decor from Target in 2016 now sits in a storage closet. It’s a wasteful, environmentally taxing industry, as Americans throw out more than 12 million tons of furnishings a year, according to the EPA, which increased nearly five times since the 1960s. Likely, the rise of mass media and the visibility of different interiors encouraged new aesthetic demands—which are only exacerbated by Instagram and TikTok. According to Vogue, 2022 interior trends encompass harmonic earth tones, architectural bubble sofas, and soft minimalism, à la Kim Kardashian’s mausoleum mansion. All your knick-knacks, dopamine-sparking hues, and maximalistic sensibilities are duly out. But these curated, commodified lifestyles presented in media, and the rate they’re replaced, feed into disposable, detached consumer culture. 

Fast furniture manufacturers use outsourced labor for lower wages and the transportation of both raw materials and their finished product accounts for a goliath carbon footprint. Some brands construct furniture with recycled or sustainable matter, but they’re expensive and pitched for higher incomes. Shopping “sustainably” is a privileged ability. One solution to affordable, eco-conscious homeware is resale, and, per usual, college students are tapped-in.

Forbes accredits the recent furniture resale market boom to young people, nearing $16 billion by 2025 (a 70% increase since 2018). The pandemic-factor disrupted the furniture industry in likely ways. Supply-chain issues delayed deliveries, so local exchanges became the safest, most convenient option; all the while, spending more time at home and online led homeowners to rethink their environments. 

While furniture is generally an investment for a long-term home, college students are only entering a commitment as long as their lease. Quality matters for functionality, but pricepoint and style are also priorities, which is why pre-owned furniture tends to exist alongside items from Ikea, Target, Wayfair, and Amazon. Secondhand finds are always more sustainable because you’re giving new life to something that would otherwise be trash. Plus, it’s naturally incentivized with shockingly good deals—if you dig for them. Or, with luck, you could stumble upon vintage mirrors or even full kitchen sets on Boston’s trash nights, like “Allston Christmas,” the sweet spot during college move-outs when students offer unwanted home items on the street for free.

A beloved tool for connecting metropolitans looking to exchange gently used items is Facebook Marketplace. “I got super into it sophomore year of college,” says Sabine Waldeck ‘22. “I’ve always had this vision of what my apartment would look like because I grew up on Tumblr, collecting things and avidly hunting for the best deals. I love mid-century modern stuff, and a lot of that style is on Facebook Marketplace and in thrift stores.”

Will Percarpio ‘23, an antique lover, scored a gem online: a teal blue dresser of solid wood and hand-crafted handles for $80 on Facebook. “This old lady in Beacon Hill didn’t want to keep the piece anymore, so she was in the market for a seller. It didn’t fit their space, and I jumped on it as quickly as I could,” he says. “I had to lug the dresser down winding stairs and narrow hallways and strapped it into my mom’s car to bring back to my apartment. I now have a piece she built with her husband in my apartment. That dresser has seen a lifetime of arguments, of love, of intimate moments between two people who loved each other. How can you beat that?”

Recent graduate Alyssa Raine shares the same sentiment: “I love things that are preloved and have history.” She keeps an eye on her Instagram feed for her bargains. “A lot of my secondhand furniture is actually from friends from college who moved out, and their furniture was also pre-owned and secondhand. I have a vintage green vanity that stores all of my skincare and makeup. It also doubles as a desk for me. It’s totally unique. It was previously owned by my friend’s roommate, so I love that I know who it came from.”

Sourcing pieces from unlikely places lends itself to a mix of eclectic aesthetics, contrary to trends—which, for Keely Ventress ‘22, is the point. “I tend to like how my space looks more when it’s not uniform, it feels so much homier,” she says.

Waldeck is an avid fashion thrifter and it translates into smaller home pieces like dishware, saying there’s similar, satisfying serendipity. “I like older vintage clothes mixed with more trendy stuff, which my decor style is like,” she says. “But my fashion is a bit edgier, and my home decor style is much warmer, because who doesn’t want to feel warm in their own space?”

For Ventress, she shops similarly for fashion and furniture. “I love finding things that are ‘staples’ and building either an outfit out of it or finding a new way to decorate my room,” she says.

Still, having the option to shop both stylishly and sustainably comes with responsibility. “I do get scared about taking things from people who rely on secondhand more than I do and where my place stands in all that,” Waldeck says. “That’s why I don’t try to over-indulge, and when I buy pieces, they are things I intend on having for years and not for a trend.”