Ecologue

We’ve finally finished collecting the weights from the wood donations, and the results are in: OSU students donated 22,408 pounds of donations as a part of the Res. Hall Move-out Donation Drive this year.

The weights by category are as follows:

• 10,027 pounds of housewares
• 1,897 pounds of food, toiletries, and school supplies
• 6,664 pounds of clothing, bedding, and linens.
• 3,820 pounds of wood
• 296 pounds of electronic waste (not counted in donation total because it was recycled)

This year saw an increase in the amount of housewares that were donated, but large decreases in the other categories. The amount of E-waste which was collected remained about the same from last year.

It is uncertain what caused the decrease in donations, but some possible examples include less waste being generated (ie, students taking belongings home early) or donatable items being thrown away.

While this did not meet our goal of 28,000 pounds, it still exceeded the 2012 weight, as well as last year’s goal of 22,000 pounds. Over the past five years, OSU has diverted nearly 100,000 pounds of belongings from the landfill through the donation drive.

A total of 27 volunteers from the community helped sort the donations into their respective categories. The donations were given to local nonprofit organizations, such as the Heartland Humane Society, the Parent Enhancement Program, and the Linn Benton Food Share. A portion of the donations were also resold at the OSUsed Store to help cover the costs of collecting them throughout the donation drive.

We’d like to thank the students of OSU for once again making the donation drive a successful event, as well as all of the volunteers for helping us pick up and sort through all of the donations.

Visit the Move-out History page on our website to learn more about the results from previous years.

The Res. Hall Move-out Donation Drive is an annual event coordinated by Campus Recycling in collaboration with Surplus Property and University Housing and Dining.