Listen, you know we're more than a little obsessed with Ikea hacks. But if you're convinced your piece of furniture can't be revived with a few DIY tricks and are ready to dump it permanently, Ikea understands — they just want to find a solution that'll save their merchandise from filling up landfills everywhere.

"It's interesting that there's a perception that products that are affordable are somehow also disposable," Steve Howard, the company's Chief Sustainability Officer, told Fast Company. "And we've got to challenge that. We think it's our obligation as a business to make sure there are good channels available for people to resell products that are good and when products are actually finished, those are recycled as well."

Enter: The "Second Life for Furniture" program. Originally started in France and Belgium, this program lets customers return old items in return for a store voucher. In Sweden, they're testing out a pilot program that lets people recycle plastic furniture (even if it wasn't purchased at Ikea), since finding a place to dispose of these items seems to be a major challenge for many. And in 20 different markets they're also going to start picking up and recycling old mattresses.

While the retailer's strategy as a whole seems to be a work in progress, Howard says that once a pilot program proves successful, they move quickly to make it a reality. Fingers crossed some (or all!) of these programs make it to our local stores soon.

[via Fast Company