Converse, Crocs, and cleats. Vacuums, mini fridges, rugs, and a TV. An unopened bottle of adobo seasoning and a sealed package of ramen. Chairs, hangers, and laundry baskets.
The pile of gently used items collected during AU’s 12th annual Project Move Out, May 3–12, even included a hand-painted canvas of Megamind, the blue cartoon supervillain from the 2010 DreamWorks film of the same name. “It’s just perfect,” said AU’s zero waste manager Caroline Boone of the painting. “No notes.”
Led by AU’s Office of Sustainability, Project Move Out and its start-of-the-semester counterpart, Project Move In, keep students’ unwanted items out of landfills while helping other Eagles outfit their nests for free. The initiative also gets the university closer to achieving its goal of zero waste by 2030.
At the end of the spring semester, Project Move Out placed four 9-by-8-foot metal pods across campus. Students donated more than 500 pounds of food, five tons of clothing, and a hodgepodge of gently used dorm decor. Outside of bedding, underwear, and personal hygiene items, almost anything was welcome.
“The only thing that we need more of moving forward is cultural change,” Boone said. “Part of the reason this is such an important program is that there’s just so much stuff.”
According to Planet Aid, the average college student creates 640 pounds of trash annually—with a “significant spike” at the end of the academic year.
Nonperishable items collected in May were donated to the Market, AU’s free food pantry for students (see page X), and clothes were picked up and sorted by Goods Recycling, a DC nonprofit that distributes them to local thrift stores and shelters.
The rest of the items were stored over the summer and then unpacked in the East Campus parking lot for Project Move In, August 23 and 26. During that (literal) free-for-all, 17 tons of gently used items were distributed. Half of the inventory disappeared within the first hour.
Abdulla Abduganiev, CAS/BS ’28, who is from Uzbekistan, came with his roommate, Alex Reardon, Kogod/BS ’28, to find items they realized were missing from their corner of Letts Hall.
“Everything I didn’t bring with me, I got it from here,” said Abduganiev, who checked two large suitcases on his flight to the US. “I got a drying rack, a vacuum, and he’s taking a chair. This is really cool.”
Michael Bruk, SIS/BA ’25, came away with paintings, rugs, a lamp, a shoe rack, a trash can, and a North Face backpack. “We can’t afford to buy everything for an apartment,” Bruk said of his suitemates in Cassell Hall. “This will make it homier.”
Bruk is a fan of the sustainability program, having picked up dorm decor at last year’s Project Move In and donated much of it back to Project Move Out. The Global Scholar expects to do the same thing before he graduates in May.
Sustainability manager Anna Parse Johnson said that’s exactly how the program should work. This fall, the Office of Sustainability put labels on the bottom of some larger items to track how much use they get from one semester to the next.
“The dream is that students don’t need to buy new things,” she said. “They just use it for a year and give it back to us.”
Because one student’s trash is another Eagle’s treasure—and another’s and another’s.