You might walk past an urban bench every day without thinking about what happens to it when it breaks or becomes too old. The short answer is: it depends. But more often than you'd hope, many benches still end up in landfills. However, that’s starting to change.
Let’s break it down. The fate of an urban bench largely depends on the material it’s made from.
Metal benches (usually steel or aluminum) are highly recyclable. Scrap metal can be melted down and reused indefinitely without losing quality. Many cities now have recycling programs that separate metal from other waste. So if your bench is made of solid metal, chances are good that it will be recycled.
Wooden benches are a mixed bag. Untreated or sustainably harvested wood can sometimes be chipped into mulch or used for biomass energy. But many urban benches are treated with chemicals to resist rot and insects. That treated wood often cannot be safely recycled or composted. In practice, it frequently goes to a landfill. Some innovative companies now use wood-plastic composites, which can be ground up and remolded, but that’s still not common practice everywhere.
Plastic benches, especially those made from recycled plastics, can be recycled again—but only if the city has the proper sorting facilities. Recycled plastic lumber, for instance, can be melted and reformed a few times, but each cycle reduces quality. Many municipalities struggle with the cost and complexity of recycling mixed plastics, so these benches often take the landfill route too.
Concrete or stone benches are durable but heavy. Crushed concrete can be repurposed as aggregate for road base or new concrete. However, this requires specialized crushing equipment and transportation, which isn't always economical for small-scale removal. Without that infrastructure, a concrete bench simply becomes landfill filler.
But here’s the hopeful part: forward-thinking cities are now designing benches for disassembly and circularity. For example, a few European cities use modular benches where each component can be easily separated, repaired, or replaced. The entire bench is designed so that its materials can be reclaimed and remade into new benches. One notable example is the "Circular Bench" pilot in Amsterdam, which uses fully separable metal frames and wood slats that can be returned to their original suppliers at end of life.
So, does an urban bench go to a landfill? All too often, yes. But the trend is shifting. With better design choices, material selection, and city recycling programs, we can keep these ubiquitous pieces of public furniture out of landfills and in a continuous cycle of reuse.
The real question isn’t just whether a bench can be recycled—it’s whether we, as communities, decide to build the systems that make recycling possible.