The Fast Furniture Fix

Seriously...

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.1 • 885 Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fair fashion campaigner and influencer Venetia La Manna sets out to discover how the ways we produce, consume and value furniture have transformed over recent decades, and what that means for our homes and the planet. From the comfort of our sofas, it’s a giant footprint and a major waste category that many of us are barely aware of. And with diminishing quality feeding our throwaway mindset, are we beginning to get stuck in a perpetual cycle?

Venetia finds out how we got here and explores the nuanced reasons we turn to fast options – out of both choice and necessity, from the influence of social media to the housing crisis. We hear about the turning tide towards second hand furniture and the growing reuse market, and ask pioneering homewares giant IKEA about their sustainability strategy. If we act now, can fast furniture slow down before it’s too late?

With contributions from design historian Deborah Sugg Ryan, sustainable consumption expert Tim Cooper, TrendBible’s Home and Interiors Editor Wendy Lowe, culture journalist Kieran Yates, and representatives from Bristol Waste, Gloucestershire County Council, and IKEA. Photo credit: Holly Falconer

Transcript

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0:00.0	This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.
0:05.0	The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.
0:09.0	And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.0	The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.5	The IRA inmates who found a way.
0:14.5	I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path
0:19.5	through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.
0:25.0	The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.
0:28.5	Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:35.0	BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:39.0	All right there, fellow podcast lovers.
0:42.0	This is seriously from BBC Radio 4 and I'm your
0:46.4	host Vanessa Casile each week this podcast brings you two of the best
0:51.4	documentaries the audio world has to offer.
0:54.0	Here comes something unusual, charming and seriously fascinating.
1:00.0	So currently peering into a very large container filled with scraps of
1:09.5	woods. I can see a laundry basket, a wooden tray, an office chair.
1:17.0	It's a familiar sight to us all, a chest of drawers left on the side of the road,
1:22.0	a sofa at the tip. There are two gorgeous kind of coffee tables.
1:27.0	That's an interesting glass cabinet. But yeah, everything's in pretty good nick. But when you see an abandoned chair and a recycling bay, it's not just a chair.
1:38.0	It carries a story about someone's life, the way we live today, and the way we consume and value our
	...

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