Rutgers Saves Goods Destined for Landfills, Aids Local Communities

It’s a rite of spring at any college – departing students discard thousands of possessions still in good or new condition because they don’t have ways to store or transport them. Now Rutgers has started a program to keep these useful materials out of the Middlesex County landfill and help local communities at the same time.

Called Rutgers Recovering Our Resources,  the project in its first year involved about 20 volunteers who worked outside university housing facilities and dumpsters during mid-May, collecting any usable items that were about to be thrown away. Common items included clothing, televisions, lamps, carpets, kitchenware, and hundreds of small odds and ends.

Volunteers then held several “sorting parties” to organize the hundreds of pounds of usable items they collected.  Most of these will be stored during the summer and sold at a large rummage sale during the beginning of the fall semester, with any remaining items to be donated to charity or recycled.

Some items have already made their way into the local community. Non-perishable foods were given to Rutgers Against Hunger, a program that collects food and monetary donations for local food banks. Bicycles were sent to the New Brunswick Bike Library, which helps local residents and students build and repair their own bicycles.  Broken electronics are being recycled in an environmentally sensitive manner to avoid adding lead and other toxic substances to landfills.

The Rutgers Recovering Our Resources program  was initiated by Albert Bozenmayer, a graduating senior in the School Of Environmental And Biological Sciences, and a volunteer with the Solid Waste Resource Renewal Group (SWRRG), and Priscilla Hayes, director of the SWRRG, a unit of Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.

“The program really brought out the best in cooperation from all our departments, and drew on the strengths and resources we already had,” Hayes said. “This made it possible to start something ambitious even in a tight budget year.”  Participating departments included University Facilities, Rutgers Housing and Residence Life, Academic Engagement and Programming, campus deans from the Office of Undergraduate Education, the Office of Student Life, and the Department of Transportation Services.

Hays said University Facilities provided planning and implementation help, as well as trucks and university-approved drivers.  Housing suggested the best collection locations and gave additional assistance during the collection event.  Campus deans provided funds for Bozenmayer to coordinate the event, continuing through the summer into the fall rummage sale.  Chris Catching of Academic Engagement and Programming worked as a liaison, arranging help with logo design, posters and media outreach. Student Life arranged to list the event as a volunteering opportunity for students and the greater Rutgers community.  Residence Life and Housing publicized the event in residence halls. Transportation Services made arrangements for the placement of storage containers and collection trucks.

Vital additional help came from Eric Bierman of Export Transport Company, Inc, a member of Rutgers’ Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences’ advisory board. His company donated three giant shipping containers to protect the donated items and the volunteers as they sorted them.

“I was impressed by the passion the planners had for this event,” Bierman said. “I just felt I had to help them make this a success.”

Bozenmayer oversaw the sorting operation, and volunteers were rewarded with credits toward items they would like to buy. Over the summer, Bozenmayer and Hayes will call on the participating departments to help them get the word out to returning and incoming students, and build excitement for the fall sale.