Making Move Out More Sustainable

The end of the year is coming sooner than our thesising seniors would like to admit, and with it, move out season. That means it’s time to start thinking about what you’re going to do with all of that stuff you managed to cram into your dorm room/apartment/closet/junk drawers.

The Office of Sustainability and your sustainability interns are here to remind you that the best thing you can do is to take the time to clean out your space before we get to the end of the year. Before it’s time to panic, go through what you have and think about what you’ll want to keep. This will give you more time to plan out your move and to make sure that anything you want to pass along will go to the best home possible. Ask your fashionable friends or social media following if they’re interested in what you no longer want. You can sell clothing, household items, decorations, and more on Depop, Facebook Marketplace, Poshmark, or to secondhand stores like Buffalo Exchange. The Reed Bookstore will give you cash for your textbooks during finals week, and Powell’s will give you store credit for books you bring in to donate. You can also donate clothes, shoes, art supplies, school supplies, books, organizational items, cooking items, and small household appliances to the Swap Shop at any time.

Give & Go bins went into dorms the week of April 15. Items that are donated will be picked up by Facilities Services, sustainability interns, and volunteers (which could be you - email ehowley@reed.edu if you want to volunteer). We keep as much stock as our storage space allows to be re-distributed into the Reed community through the Swap Shop and at the start of the year, but we also work with partners in the wider Portland community to deal with the influx of donations. Some of our partners include Rose Haven, a women’s shelter; Rahab’s Sisters, a community center for gender-minority people; Community Warehouse, which provides household goods and furniture for people experiencing housing insecurity; and Portland Street Medicine, which provides medical care and support services for unhoused people in Portland. A sustainability intern will work over the summer to sort, donate, and store these donated items.

There are lots of items that get mistakenly donated. Here are some things that should go into the trash: used underwear and socks, extremely damaged clothing, fabric scraps, used mattress pads (cloth or foam), used makeup and skincare products, worn/torn towels and bed linens, broken furniture, and opened or expired food or medicine. You can take electronic waste, pill bottles, cannabis containers, wire, shipping envelopes, scrap metal, lightbulbs, and more to the Recycling Center next to the mailroom. 

That is all for now, thanks everyone! Good luck with finals!