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Students donate unwanted items to the Reuse Depot, reducing waste and supporting campus needs through a sustainable “Donate, don’t dump” program.
OAKLAND, Calif. — For Adriano Jara, getting ready to move from Northeastern’s campus in Oakland to the university’s campus in London means getting rid of stuff.
So on a December morning the international business student carried an armful of clothes out of his room in Mary Morse Hall to the circular drive where two storage pods waited.
About half of what students leave behind is donated to local nonprofits that serve communities in need. The other half is available in the Reuse Depot, where students can pick up gently used items for free — instead of buying new.
The Reuse Depot is part of the university’s Climate Justice and Sustainability Program.
“For me this is very useful, actually,” Jara said. “It’s nice that someone else could use my stuff.”
Located near Mills Hall, the Reuse Depot is about the size of a two-car garage. Organized and tidy, its shelves and racks are loaded with clothing, books and dorm furniture staples like desk lamps and — most popular of all — three-drawer plastic storage bins.
“Those are a hot-ticket item,” said Andrew Gonzalez, head of sustainability at the Oakland campus. “When we open the depot during the first days of the semester, parents and students rush in and grab these things.
Hundreds of students move in and out of student housing every semester. And for many of the departing students, this often means leaving some stuff behind. After all, you can only fit so much in a car or plane.
“We get a lot of Brita water filters, for whatever reason,” Gonzalez says.
Students also leave behind portable heaters, humidifiers, shower caddies and hampers. All of these items disappear fast when the new semester starts, Gonzalez says, along with notepads and pens.
Even students who are staying in Oakland for spring semester use the donation pods. Joel Appiah, a biology major who works in the depot, plans to donate all his cleaning supplies.
In addition to necessities, students have donated some unusual items since the program got started last year. Sustainability Program Coordinator Morgan Billington says the depot once received a full-body mustard container costume.
The program used to accept donations inside housing facilities, but the volume just got too big, Gonzalez says. That’s when they started renting storage pods and locating them outside housing.
At the end of the spring semester last year, the depot received about 3,000 cubic feet of donations, he says.
“Donate, don’t dump,” Billington says. “That’s our motto.”