Solving The Mass Discard Problem on College Campuses

Imagine a day or series of days when people pile up all sorts of stuff on the curb and give it away for free. Unopened food, nearly new mini fridges. Perfectly good furniture. Even digital devices like monitors or TVs. Anyone can come up and take anything they want. This is the reality on college campuses across the country right now as students move out of dorms and find themselves unable or unwilling to take all the stuff they used all year. So they just leave it on the curb.

Over 15 years ago, one student witnessed this annual ritual and decided to try and do something about it to help find a good home or reuse for all those curb-side possessions. His national non-profit is called the Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN) and works to create a school-run, student-led, zero waste initiative on campuses that coordinates with over 200 schools around the US. At his former alma mater at the University of New Hampshire, volunteers spend 600 hours collecting and sorting items left by students departing for the summer. Items are cleaned, put into storage and then saved for resale when students come back after the summer.

This is the sort of non-obvious idea for a non-profit that I love to see stories about. Solving a problem, educating people and helping us manage our throw-away culture to make a change.