College Students Still Dumping Junk Curbside

Try as colleges and universities may to cut down on the amount of stuff that college students dump at the curb at the end of every semester, mountains of furniture, clothes and other items still end up piled high, destined for the landfill. This is especially true for students who live off campus.

Matt Embrey at GreenUpgrader took some photos of dumpsters in his college town of Durham, New Hampshire at the end of the semester. University of New Hampshire students, like those at virtually every university across the country, left the curbs littered with stuff – much of which is still in decent condition.

From GreenUpgrader:

After thinking about this for a short time this morning I came up with a potential solution… a giant swap shop.  The Town of Durhm has a “Swap shop” at the town dump.  It’s a place to deposit the things that you don’t want anymore (but aren’t trash)  for other people to take and put to use.  It is a small two bay garage so the amount of furniture they house is limited.  The university could run a much larger scale swap shop.  Basically, they would drive around at the end of the year and pick up all the old furniture that is still usable and bring it down to a large warehouse to store for the summer months.  At the beginning of the new school year they open the doors and have a big yard sale where they charge a nominal amount for each piece to cover the cost of operations.  Most college kids use used furniture anyway, and having a university sponsored furniture depostiory would allow for this furniture to be used over and over rather than retired early to the landfill.

Considering the University of New Hampshire’s commitment to sustainability, this could really work. Hopefully university officials are listening and can take Matt’s idea, make the necessary refinements and put it into action – it would be a great example for other schools across America, as well.

Link [GreenUpgrader]

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