If you're interested in becoming an ethical consumer and the next item you need to buy is a sofa, here are some ethical shopping tips to follow when you go to purchase this furniture.
Search for Aussie-made modular sofas
If you have access to online or brick-and-mortar shops that sell Aussie-made modular sofas, then you should take a look at their offerings and think about buying the one that best suits your home decor. There are several advantages to doing this if you're keen to be a more ethical consumer.
For example, if the sofa you buy is made by an Australian firm, then you'll know that the employees who made it were provided with safe working conditions and were paid a fair wage, in accordance with the laws in the manufacturer's state. If, however, you order a sofa produced in, for example, a country where labour laws are much laxer and where the working conditions in manufacturing factories are, therefore, very bad, you might inadvertently contribute to the factory employees' terrible working conditions and low wages by supporting their employer's business.
Additionally, if you get a modular sofa, you can reconfigure it to suit your household's evolving requirements over the coming years. For example, you can expand the sofa by buying extra seats and footstool attachments if you have more children and need more seats, or you can remove a couple of sofa components if you end up moving to a property with a smaller living room. This means you'll be less likely to dispose of the sofa and get a new one before the former has actually worn out, just because it's no longer the right size for your home. This, in turn, will reduce your contribution to the 'fast-furniture' industry, whose rates of production and disposal cause a lot of pollution.
Donate your old sofa to an op-shop whose ethics align with your own
After picking out your Australian-made modular sofa, you will need to get rid of your old sofa. Rather than selling it or throwing it in a landfill, you should consider donating to an op-shop whose published ethos features values that are similar to your own. For example, if you are a firm believer in providing the homeless with as much support as possible, you might want to look for an op-shop run by a charity that focuses on helping the homeless. This is perhaps one of the most ethical methods of making room in your home for your new sofa.
It's best to do this a week or so before your new sofa is going to be delivered, as it may take a few days for the op-shop to arrange for one of their collection drivers to pick up your old sofa. Doing this before the new modular one arrives will mean you won't have to spend several days dealing with the presence of an extra sofa in your house that you have no space for.
