Ecologue

The results are in: OSU residents donated about 23,000 pounds during the Res. Hall Move-Out Donation Drive!

This includes an estimated:

• 11,997 pounds of housewares
• 6,867 pounds of clothing, shoes and linens
• 3,103 pounds of food, toiletries, and school supplies
• 1,000 pounds of loft kit wood

That’s 22,967 pounds total!

While the weight did not meet our goal of 28,000 pounds, it is slightly higher than the total weight from two years ago. As you can see below, last year was a record high. The decrease we saw from 2015 to 2016 is equal to 32 percent. This is primarily due to a major decrease in wood weights (1,000 to 7,618 pounds, an 87 percent decrease) and to a lesser extent a decline in clothes/shoes/linens (9,706 to 6,867 pounds, a 29 percent decrease).

We are uncertain about why donation weights declined. Because our waste hauler does not weigh trash, we are not able to speculate on whether donations decreased due to increased landfilling of items. It is possible that the major decline we saw in wood weights was due to a decrease in the number of single-use loft bed kits used or an increase in the number of kits that were taken home by residents (in either case, this would be a win for waste reduction).

This effort involves a lot of planning, marketing and logistics. Donation bins and move-out kits are supplied to residents about three weeks prior to move-out and the majority of donations come in during finals week. During this peak time, we were so grateful to have 51 volunteers give over 160 hours of time to pick-up and sort donations! And special thanks also go out to our partners at UHDS for their continued role in the program and to all the residents who donated!

While a portion of the materials are resold at the OSUsed Store to cover the costs of the program, the majority are given to local non-profits. This year that included The Arc of Benton County, King Valley Charter School, Linn Benton Food Share and more. See a full list on our Donation Drive webpage.

Learn more about this history of the Move-Out Donation Drive on our history webpage.

The Res. Hall Move-out Donation Drive is an annual event coordinated by Campus Recycling in collaboration with Surplus Property and University Housing and Dining.