Gabby Spaulding | News Editor | gspaulding@mail.smcvt.edu
Friends and families prepare you for the number of things you’ll need before going to college, but they never mention what to do if you do not want something anymore but it’s still in good condition. At St. Michael’s College, members in MOVE, Residential Life, Greenup, and the Institute for the Environment have created a system to make this easier for you. Ditch the Dumpster (DtD) is an event on campus where volunteers from these organizations set up tents outside each residential building and collect unwanted belongings that are still in good shape in an effort to reduce waste in dumpsters and help those in the community.
In 2015, volunteers in some of these groups asked students to bring unwanted items like books, refrigerators, and other materials still in good condition to the International Commons room to be sorted and donated to local nonprofits and organizations in the Burlington area. This effort to reduce waste turned into Ditch the Dumpster, an event that happens during finals week of both semesters, outside each building.
Bringing donations to International Commons worked well, but Sarah Klionsky, Bergeron counselor and DtD volunteer, knew there were more ways to get students to stop throwing away things they didn’t want anymore.
“I saw all these unbroken mirrors in the dumpsters and people would throw more stuff on top and break them, and I just thought this is crazy,” Klionsky said. “A moment ago, they were fresh, nothing wrong with them, and now they’re completely smashed. We had a good plan, we just needed to tweak it a little more.”
In subsequent years, DtD staff put boxes in the stairwells of Ryan, Alumni, and Lyons, in hopes that the more convenient locations would entice more donations, and they did.
“It was overwhelming for us at first, how many things were donated, but then you think about how many people need these things,” Klionsky said.
Ditch the Dumpster partners with ReSOURCE, a nonprofit organization in Vermont. Each day DtD is running, ReSOURCE picks up the donations from St. Michael’s and brings them back to their facilities to be sold at a lower price or given away for free. “It’s really been like a labor of love with so many people joining together representing so many parts of St. Michael’s and the ways to help the community,” Klionsky said.
As DtD has grown over the years, more and more food began showing up in the boxes. As a result, DtD created a partnership with Burlington based Food not Bombs, a volunteer movement that protests spending more money on war when there are ongoing issues of hunger, poverty, and destruction of the environment in the world. Food not Bombs cooks free vegan and vegetarian meals in conjunction with donated food that would be thrown out, to feed those who need it near Church Street in Burlington every day.
After establishing a partnership with ReSOURCE and Food not Bombs, DtD made an agreement with Steve McMahon, manager of the St. Michael’s campus bookstore, to start selling some things in there to incoming freshmen or current students and faculty at a lower price. College students don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on things they need for their dorm if they don’t have to, and DtD was looking for ways to reduce waste. The thought was, if current students donate things they don’t use anymore, other students could save money by purchasing a used version of whatever it is they need. “The groups reached out to us at the bookstore and asked if we’d be willing to help them with it and we said of course,” McMahon said, “Since then, they’ve been bringing in microwaves, fridges, door mirrors, anything they think we can clean and sell here.” Along with lower pricing, selling things in the bookstore allows for students without cars to access these things as well, especially if they aren’t able to go to other places like ReSOURCE. Donated items are available at the start of the next academic year, and all commission is put back into DtD so they can use it on things like shirts, tents, and cleaning supplies for future years.
This year the event will be a little different, what MOVE is calling “Ditch the Dumpster Remix.” Instead of having designated spots to put things to then be donated, MOVE has created a buy nothing Facebook group. This group is made for staff and students to trade, give away, or acquire things that would otherwise be thrown away. The group is only accessible to St. Michael’s staff and students, and anyone who joins can post items, comment, or reply to posts to get free items. All items that aren’t claimed through the Facebook group can still be donated to ReSource or the St. Michael’s bookstore by bringing them to the first floor of Alliot on May 6 from 1-3:30pm.