Main elements to consider and problems to solve

• Production and distribution: two totally different areas contrary to car industry: the retailers (100,000 stores in the EU) are the interface between the consumers and manufacturers

• Life time of furniture can be up to 25 years

• Almost 90,000 furniture producers: some companies disappear (what about their products) other appear (what about their responsibility)

• Some 7 billions worth of furniture (7% of the market) is imported from outside the EU

• Furniture is a no-brand product, only 20% of furniture sold is sold under a specific brand with high visibility

• Combination of furniture coming from various manufacturers and retailers in a same room

• Between 30 and 40% of old furniture ends in second-hand or third-hand markets and therefore is re-used, extending the life time of products

• Consumption of furniture in volume has been is slightly increasing the last 20 years (cyclical durable good

• Currently, door-to-door collection and voluntary disposal in container parks function well over Europe

• Incineration and landfilling of old furniture (not recycled or re-used) have limited environmental impacts and can even been balanced by the almost non-existent environmental impacts of furniture during its use

• Manufacturers (especially in the office sector and the large companies) should be ready to mark pieces in order to disassemble and recycle products)

• Voluntary approach: difficult: to be analysed and to check if it is possible on the EU level and for the whole industry and what which cost ?

• Problems related to large cities and small cities-remote areas ?

• To succeed, a collection system should also create value from recycled products or materials to self-fund the system (but difficult except maybe through creation of energy)

• Importance of this issue especially regarding the future eco-label for furniture (cf eco-label on mattresses without requirements for waste management whilst proposed by the industry)