Help needed to avoid skipping of office stuff

smiths84

My office building is being refurbished which means a large volume of office furniture, pictures, clocks, memoribilia etc are literally heading for the skip (or quietly...ahem..disappearing) unless I do something quick. I've asked and company policy in these circumstances is unhelpful and vague. Health and safety etc apparently means we can't give the stuff away. Skipping seems to be the preferred option which is of course an appalling waste. Does anyone have any ideas? I reckon the company would tolerate an auction of much of this stuff to staff for charity. Is there a simple way of doing this? Stuff will need to be disposed of at different times over the next six months as the refurb progresses. Has anyone organised anything similar? Thank you.

Ilona

It would break my heart to see good stuff chucked, being an avid skip diver myself. How annoying, what has health and safety got to do with giving things away. Can you get several colleagues together for support, to pester the management to let you give it away. The charities should have first choice, we have a Brt Heart Foundation furniture store here. I think pester power is the way to go. Go higher up to head office.
Ilona

Butterfly_Brain

Ask your company if they would consider donating it to a charity that helps the poor in this country

morganlefay

Brit heart foundation (as above) took all sorts of things we wanted to get rid of when we moved, and came and got them. I was very impressed. It would be shocking in this econoomic climate to skip them - shame on people who claim 'health and safety' as a reason for not doing things, and well done you smiths84 !:T
PS or maybe i'd be tempted just to leave them in a prominent place outside the office so people could just help themselves, then there'd be no problem with H&S since people would be responsible for taking them if they wanted them, and thus not the responsibility of your firm.

floss2

Why not offer furniture etc to Business Link for start-up businesses or maybe to local drop-in centres, youth groups, community groups etc.

LutonGirl

Would a local museum or history group be interested in the memorabilia? I once worked for a long established company that was taken over and the new owners had no regard for anything historical. The local history group was delighted to get the stuff.

prowla

Offer it on freecycle/freegle - people will come and collect it.

savetosave

Hi
Do you have a local scrap store? Many companies give unwanted items including furniture and stationery to them and local charities can get the stuff from them.

pigpen

put it outside it will disappear in a flash.