Reuse program lets students get rid of unwanted items — without throwing them away

UB students have come up with a creative way to break the cycle of waste that happens when residents move out of their dorms at the end of the school year.

Called UBReUSE, the program is aimed at keeping as much unwanted stuff out of Dumpsters and landfills as possible. So from 1-5 p.m. each day from May 8-15 — the week during which students move out of campus housing — collection sites will be set up at the Ellicott Complex, Greiner Hall and Hadley Village on the North Campus where students can drop off unwanted goods.

Acceptable items include furniture, electronics, clothing and small appliances such as coffee makers, blenders and toasters. The full list of items that will be accepted can be found on the UBReUSE website.

UB faculty, staff and off-campus students also are welcome to participate in the program by dropping off unwanted goods.

“We really want to keep as much out of landfills as possible, so we’re trying to make the collection process as inclusive as we can,” says Jenna Bower, a senior fine art major leading the project. “We’d rather collect broken items that can’t be resold and take the time to figure out how to fix them up, or the proper way to dispose of them, rather than continue a cycle-of-waste culture.”

Items collected during the week will be tested and refurbished, then stored over the summer and sold at a discounted price at a yard sale during Opening Weekend Aug. 27-30.

Clothing and other items also will be donated to Hearts for the Homeless, a Buffalo-based nonprofit that helps the poor and chronic homeless, and the Buffalo City Mission — two organizations with which UB has worked in the past.

The yard sale will offer an affordable way for new students to buy needed materials to furnish their dorms, Bower said, adding that it will be of particular help for UB’s large international student population who often buy items they need from large retailers once they arrive on campus.

“We want to build UBReUSE up as a program that incoming students can rely on for purchasing these items instead of going to the big-box stores,” Bower says. “We only have so much space on Earth, and the global population keeps increasing. As kids, we’re taught to clean up our toys and pick up after ourselves. Why, as adults, are we not held to that same standard? It’s lazy, wasteful, stinky and irresponsible.”

Money raised from the yard sale will help expand the UBReUSE program for next year — students plan to involve the South Campus and the larger community — and help support other student-led sustainability initiatives on campus.

“We want to empower students to leave a positive impact at UB, whether that means purchasing outdoor equipment for students to engage more with nature, or purchasing resources for starting recycling programs through TerraCycle that allow us to close other waste streams on campus,” Bower says.

This year’s pilot program is completely student-run, with support from Campus Living and the Office of Sustainability. It’s being administered by students in the Education and Leadership Fellows in Sustainability program and other student volunteers. The ELFS program is part of the new Change Agents Scholar Initiative funded by university supporters and donors through President Satish K. Tripathi’s President’s Circle Fund.

UBReUSE is a local chapter of the Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN), a nonprofit organization that helps student groups with programs aimed at keeping reusable items out of landfills.