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IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

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Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#81

Post by bombcar »

KaiserPro wrote: post #45
fimdomeio wrote: post #13

I have a problem with IKEA. Aren't those peaces of furniture made of composite materials and those not so sturdy shelves a sustainability problem when compared to traditional furniture making which is mostly wood glue a protective coat which lasts for hundreds of years can be infinitely repaired in a workshop with some basic tools. And then it it all ends it can became firewood, which ikea furniture can't. Shouldn't…

I have lots of Ikea furniture, I also have some "real" In terms of longevity, I don't see that much of a difference. They both require basic care and maintenance to keep in one piece. People throw away furniture, regardless of who/how its made. Thats the issue we need to tackle.

A thing I've noticed is that even if built from real wood most chairs are NOT designed to hold the average American - who has grown in leaps and bounds since the 1800s - and once they start to loosen at the joints there's no real saving them.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#84

Post by the_other »

loceng wrote: post #69
renewiltord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't seem that bad to make forests, then cut them down, mix them together with stuff that makes them non-compostable and then just jamming it in the ground. Some local pollution, but you ultimately are sequestering the carbon, so all is well.

Is there a silent /sarcasm tag at the end of this comment?

It doesn’t read as sarcasm to me. The bulk of the ideas seem “in the right direction”, just with a bunch of gaps and uncertainty. The gaps and uncertainty are where research and conversation live. I read the comment in that spirit.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#85

Post by bombcar »

ornornor wrote: post #50
namdnay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a misconception that Ikea is all cheap composite. It's really not true, they cover a wide range, and they have full-wood models for nearly all product categories Obviously most people buy the cheap stuff, but that's the case of any low/medium end furniture chain really

They have pieces that aren’t particle board. These pieces are the lowest quality pine they could find. It’s super soft so it’s very easy to put a dent in and it’s not particularly well protected either so you end up throwing it away after a while as well. Maybe not as soon as the particle board junk but not much later either. Ikea used to be well made and decent quality 20 years ago. It all went downhill from there a…

It's literally glued together "scrap" wood - which can work fine - but it is also susceptible to "drying" damage - I have a Hermes shelf that is more like a U than a _ now.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#86

Post by mytailorisrich »

loceng wrote: post #23
piokoch wrote: post #14

This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt. "Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1] I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous. Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain them…

It's because they're fighting the arguably true reality that the majority of their furniture is designed to be disposable, and consumers are generally fine with that. I'd like to be wrong, though until we require companies to be responsible for all costs associated with the full lifecycle of a product so externalized costs are incorporated, we're not going to develop the most sustainable practices.

A lot of their furniture is made of materials like chipboard, which is made with waste byproducts and low quality leftovers.

This certainly can be more efficient and environment-friendly than using prime slow-growth oak (for example).

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#87

Post by fastball »

helmholtz wrote: post #36
xyzzy123 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is not as easy a calculus as one might imagine. Heirloom furniture is in some ways less sustainable than Ikea products. I am not sure there would be enough sustainable hardwood in the world to meet demand at the scale of Ikea. People have different furniture needs than they did decades ago, and in terms of weight, logistics, material use, Ikea are quite efficient.

The complication is EXACTLY why we need to be even more in panic and hair-on-fire about environmental issues. A colleague did some analyses for the life cycle emissions of refrigerants. The complexity in the process was absurd, and basically intractable without simplifications. How much indirect CO2 emissions are caused by an inefficient compressor? How much does it depend on how you generate electricity? Which count…

Hence why the real solution has always been:

1. Electrify everything possible 2. Shift all electricity production to renewables, massively increase power output with nuclear nuclear nuclear. 3. Carbon capture.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#88

Post by Xylakant »

oblio wrote: post #70
Varriount wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say most pieces of furniture sold these days are made of engineered wood [0], if that's what you mean by "composite materials". Aside from easier sourcing, I presume that a big driver of it's use is the fact that it is easier to shape and produce - no having to figure out how it will be assembled using the various sizes of timber available. The actual solid-wood furniture I have seen is either quite expensive…

> The actual solid-wood furniture I have seen is either quite expensive, or (somewhat ironically) unfinished. It's also super heavy, which I personally hate. Annoying to move in, move out, move around.

I have inherited a piece of oak furniture and that was assembled at my grand-aunts flat in situ, with wood glue and moves as a single piece, doors, interior and all. It's about 2,50m wide and 2m high and feels like it weigh a ton. Takes three to four people to move. Every time I move, the folks come in, have a look at that beast and take a break. It's definitely more a piece for people that have settled in one place.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#89

Post by oblio »

trymas wrote: post #72
oblio wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if it helps, they're the biggest land (forest?) owner in Romania, too. They own something like 50 000 hectares. It's probably not 1/3rd of Romania, we're a bit bigger :-p

OP meant, that LTU has about 1/3rd of forests of it's land area. Ikea is the biggest owner of forests at 270sq.km. Whole LTU area is around ~65000sq.km., i.e. forests a bit more than 20000sq.km.

Yeah, I understood that. I was just saying that Ikea owns a lot of forests in Romania, too.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#90

Post by audunw »

namdnay wrote: post #25
piokoch wrote: post #14

This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt. "Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1] I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous. Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain them…

I guess the argument would go that we would be better off building small quantities of long-lasting re-usable furniture, rather than building and throwing away lots of new cheaper furniture The low prices at Ikea and others definitely encourage over-consumption - buying a new table instead of restoring an old one for example Personally I don't necessarily subscribe to this argument, I think that we can focus on bigge…

> I guess the argument would go that we would be better off building small quantities of long-lasting re-usable furniture, rather than building and throwing away lots of new cheaper furniture

No way. Not as long as population growth is a thing. A lot of people shopping at IKEA are buying furniture for the first time. Imagine if we switched to all hardwood furniture. People would still need to buy as much furniture for the next 20-40 years or so at least, but now those furniture will have a huge environmental impact. Maybe you reduce the long-term impact, but probably not for 50 years at least.

Making things out of cheap and low-impact particle boards, cardboard cores, etc, is probably the most realistic way of reducing the environmental impact. It maximises the use of the wood, you can make it out of fast growing wood, and you minimise use of materials. If you reuse more of the wood fibers through recycling, it'd be even better.

I feel like this whole "we should use long-lasting re-usable furniture" thing is more about upper middle class people wanting to feel good about buying expensive furniture or spending the time to find and refurbish old furniture. There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't scale.

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