No two councils across the UK have the same policy for removing bulky waste and unwanted furniture.

Extreme differences between policies were highlighted within the research, which found some council policies charging as much as £20 for the removal of a single item, compared with other boroughs which offered free removal for up to five items.

The research is part of our bid get the nation to consider reupholstering and repairing furniture instead of simply discarding it.

Birmingham, Bradford, Leicester, Lincoln, Manchester, Liverpool, Oxford, Preston and Wakefield offer the free removal of unwanted furniture, but with varying restrictions on the number of items and in some cases, type of waste.

Worcester and Cambridge were revealed as the most expensive, charging £16.10 and £20 respectively for the removal of just one single item.

The cost to remove a fridge freezer also varied dramatically between councils, with Canterbury charging the most at £25 while others offered the service for free.

Discounts for those on income support, housing benefits and pension credits were offered by some councils and not by others and in some cases, the time of year affected a council’s policy. In Chester, collection is free during the months of March and April but for the rest of the year there is a charge of £15 per collection.

Chris Plumb at Plumbs said: “According to latest government figures, the UK sends more than half its waste to landfill – that’s a huge 62 million tonnes a year in England alone. By reupholstering furniture, consumers are taking direct and effective action to help reduce our landfill problem.”

“The collection and subsequent reuse or recycling of furniture by councils is key to reducing landfill, yet our research shows that there is no consistency across UK councils with some waste policies coming out more favourable than others.”

We have created a new collection of fabrics called the ‘Bijoux Collection’. It is a co-ordinated range of four differently styled fabrics, featuring textured tweeds and crushed velvets, which are colour co-ordinated together to offer mixed furniture groupings following current trends.

The new range of fabrics have been manufactured using the very latest technology with the highest quality raw materials to offer beautiful, timeless fabrics.

The four fabrics are:

Bijoux Weave –a richly textured tweed effect combining similar tones
Bijoux Slub – a smooth textured random slub effect for perfect simplicity
Bijoux Velvet – a sumptuous crushed velvet with the very latest design trends
Bijoux Hopsack – s simply styled contemporary tweed with tonal shades

Colourways include: Grey, Mulberry, Pearl, Coca, Chocolate, Teak, Charcoal, Mist, Duck Egg, Pear and Cherry

Chris Plumb of Plumbs said, “Our new collection offers some stunning fabrics with lots of different colourways. Use them to transform a sofa or chair with loose covers or reupholstery to brighten up your room for the summer.”

We restored Anne Pritchard’s 1930’s style wingback fireside chair to its former glory live at this year’s show at the NEC. Mrs Pritchard’s chair was reupholstered in one of our beautiful fabrics – Opulence Floral – Cream, with Anne herself in attendance to see the transformation first hand.

To enter the competition, we asked entrants to submit an image of a chair they would like reupholstered, with the winning chair receiving up to £1000 worth of reupholstery, with a choice of fabric from 30 different options and full reupholstery live at the show earlier this month.

Mrs Pritchard said: “Winning this competition was a complete surprise and I’m absolutely delighted with the result. My chair has been completely transformed and it was a fantastic experience to watch the incredible skill of the Plumbs reupholsterer at work.”

Before and After Images:

From all at Plumbs, we hope Anne gets many years of joy from her restored chair.

We have recently put a brand new delivery van on the road, even though we are really excited about this, we imagine you are probably not!

So, to get you a little more excited. The first 5 people to send us a photo of themselves with one of our delivery vans will receive a lovely surprise. NO EMPLOYEES PLEASE

If you are lucky enough to snap a photo with our new van, you’ll get an extra special surprise.

Please post your photos on our Facebook page here:

http://www.facebook.com/Plumbs.Home

Just so you know, our delivery vans go all over the UK so watch out wherever you are!

Here is what our other vans look like:

Congratulations to our very own Chris Plumb, on completing, what can only be descried as a gruelling and painful bike ride.

Although “bike ride” doesn’t seem to do it justice, the long slog of cycling from Lands End to John O’Groates took Chris and his cycling partner Andrew Broomby just about 10 days to complete.

Well done from everyone at Plumbs. We’ve got a very soft cushioned chair waiting for you!