Trent Mayol was working at a paper-packaging company when his roommate called to tell him they were going to have to move apartments. It would be their fourth move together, and probably not their last. “I went in to work that day, and was surrounded by cardboard, and put two and two together.” The idea for SmartDeco, Mayol’s cardboard furniture company, was born.
Mayol is betting there are others like him with a nomadic lifestyle, people looking for a temporary furniture fix rather than expensive pieces they may end up regretting come their next moving day. Though data suggests that American’s are starting to move less — the average time spent in one house in 2013 was 8.6 years, up from five years in the ’50s and ’60s — Mayol says this hasn’t stopped his business from steadily growing. “I think people are fed up enough with existing options, and we are poised in a place to grow pretty rapidly.”
Furniture is one of the least recycled items, and the EPA estimates that nearly 9 million tons of furniture is wasted each year in the U.S. The folks at SmartDeco are hoping to curb that number with furniture that is 100 percent recyclable.