Talking Stick - July/August 2008 - 21

Rotate, Reuse, and Recycle From trading between buildings to hosting weekly campus surplus sales to donating to charities, colleges and universities find a variety of ways to salvage used furniture and equipment from residence halls. While purchasing new residence hall furniture can be exciting, finding a good home for the used furniture is just as important. Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has established a cyclical, by-building furniture replacement program, says Eddie Hull, dean of residence life and executive director of housing services. Hull says Duke considers three options when replacing old furniture: “If the furniture being replaced is still usable within our standards, we will place it in other residences not yet due for furniture replacement as a building and substitute it for individual pieces that should be replaced; or, if the furniture being replaced does not meet our standards for reuse, we will donate it to a charitable organization; or, if it is not really usable, we will discard it, but this is our last choice.” Iowa State University in Ames takes a different approach. The university’s on-campus surplus operation hosts weekly public surplus sales. Prior to these sales, university departments are encouraged to put back into circulation all usable items, says Peter Englin, director of residence: “A time for departmental viewing of all surplus items takes place each week prior to these items being offered to the public.” Hull explains that Duke University also has a campus surplus program, but it is used for disposing of office and related furniture and equipment. With sustainability at the forefront of many college housing professionals’ minds, reducing campus waste, reusing unwanted items, and recycling old furniture and equipment is more important than ever. Englin says ISU rarely needs to contribute surplus items to the landfill because the majority is sold through the surplus operation’s weekly sales: “In the past ISU Surplus has used the local Freecycle posting to move items of limited value such as good usable mattresses.” (Freecycle is a nationwide forum where items can be posted free of charge.) Certainly it’s not just the university personnel reusing and disposing of unwanted furniture and equipment. Students, especially during the end-of-the-year residence hall move-out, are notorious for trashing perfectly recyclable or reusable items. Dr. Michele Acker, professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, organized a faculty dumpster-diving service project to collect the unwanted but reusable student items from the overflowing trash bins littering the campus. Forty faculty and staff from 13 different college departments volunteered and were able to salvage items such as unopened food, hygiene products, a window air conditioner, and refrigerators, which were donated to local charities. “We were able to reduce by at least one-third the amount of material the college sent to the landfill. We increased the items that could be recycled and more importantly reused,” Acker says. “The reuse of existing items is the best way to ensure both economic and environmental sustainability. It requires no new production and costs little.” Whether old furniture and equipment is rotating through campus buildings, being sold at surplus sales, or salvaged from dumpsters after student move-out day, many colleges and universities are making the old new again by giving reusable items a second chance. – Holly Fenner July + August 2008 21
Talking Stick - July/August 2008

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