Page 599 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

566 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

FIGURE 29.3 May Move Out storage container for student donations to Goodwill. Photo Credit:
John Krygier.

(Fig. 29.3). The logistics were complicated: students had to move usable
materials to several rooms on campus, and staff drove trucks full of materials
to local social service providers. A significant amount of collected materials
were also stored on campus, in an unused building, with a desire to open a free
store the following fall. Ultimately, this model failed. It involved too much
labor and organization. In addition, the planned free store never opened, and
much of the stored material had to be discarded when a need arose for the
building that housed the materials.
Instead of letting the May Move Out effort end, we encouraged students
along with staff in Buildings & Grounds and Residential Life to rethink the
May Move Out. A student, again part of a course project, came up with a
simpler process: renting storage pods, which were located near dumpsters
during the May Move Out period and used for donated items. The pods would
then be emptied by our local Goodwill. This approach required minimal labor,
but did incur costs for the pod rental, which was funded by a small grant from
our local solid waste authority. The May Move Out in collaboration with
Goodwill was a success in its first year: diverting over 10 tons of materials.
Alas, without the grant there were concerns about the cost of the storage
pod rental. Buildings & Grounds foreman Jay Scheffel came up with a plan to
reduce the number and size of trash dumpsters (thus reducing costs), given that
tons of materials were being diverted. With Scheffel’s plan in place, the
reduced dumpster costs covered the cost of the pods. We are now able to divert
over 10 tons of materials each May as donations to Goodwill without incurring
additional costs. In addition, only a handful of volunteers are required. The
moral of the story here is that persistence, experimentation, and collaboration
between students, staff, and faculty over a number of years resulted in
implementation of a low-cost successful sustainability effort on campus.