Somerville, MA – IRN has expanded operations at its warehouse in Somerville. The warehouse is available to receive small quantities of furniture, equipment, and other surplus assets capable of being reused. Items can be dropped off by appointment, or IRN can provide pickup service.
Since 2002, IRN has facilitated reuse of more than 50 million pounds of surplus furniture and equipment, working with schools, hospitals, and corporations in 28 states. Many of its projects fill whole tractor trailers, but surplus in small quantities, sometimes just one or two desks or chairs can also be handled.
IRN accumulates and inventories the surplus, and then makes a match with its network of charities. In any given week, as many as eight trailers are filled with surplus from these small-quantity collections, with up to 60 tons provided to charity.
At the warehouse, IRN inventories the surplus, makes a match with an appropriate nonprofit recipient, loads outbound trailers, and provides each client with documentation of the quantity of surplus managed and its destination. Clients pay for these services. IRN does not sell or otherwise profit from any of the surplus it handles.
“The small quantity program is growing rapidly,” says Jim Buchholz, IRN’s Somerville manager. “We see schools, hospitals, banks, and all sorts of companies. Contractors bring in surplus from their projects. Movers bring furniture that’s left over when their clients clean out or relocate. When they realize we can give them a better option than throwing good furniture and equipment away, with little or no more cost, they come in, and then they come back.”
