Waste not

Outdoor
The Trash 2 Treasure yard sale at UNH celebrates five years

When Alex Freid was a student at the University of New Hampshire, he noticed dumpsters overflowing with perfectly good furniture and other staples of dorm life at the end of each academic year. And when students returned to campus a few months later, they were carrying carloads of new furniture, which, presumably, would end up in dumpsters some nine months later.

Freid and a team of student volunteers came up with a solution: they’d collect the discarded furniture in the spring, clean it up, store it, and then sell it at a big yard sale on campus in the fall. And so, in 2011, Freid organized the first Trash 2 Treasure yard sale at UNH.

“We were young and we were pretty nervous,” Freid says. “At the back of your mind is the concern, what if no one shows up? What if no one buys this stuff? What if this whole thing we’ve been saying, that we can build a reuse program … falls apart?”

Freid’s fears were misplaced — the sale turned out to be such a success that it became a yearly event, spread to 18 colleges and universities across the country, and helped spawn the Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN), a nonprofit network of student volunteers dedicated to reducing waste on college campuses. The fifth annual sale takes place Friday, Aug. 28 and Saturday, Aug. 29 at the Whittemore Center at UNH.

“Seeing that (first sale) was a success and being able to build off of it has been a really rewarding experience,” says Freid, the director of PLAN.

According to Freid, volunteers with Trash 2 Treasure have collected about 30 tons worth of discarded furniture, clothes, and other items for this year’s sale. In the last five years, Freid says the sales have kept about 150 tons of waste from going to local landfills.

“We help campuses think holistically … figuring out how they can tackle their waste stream.” — Alex Freid

Each spring, volunteers canvas the campus and collect discarded items. The items are kept in storage containers around UNH; volunteers clean, sort, and organize the items throughout the summer. Volunteers then move the items into the Whittemore Center for the sale, which is held the same weekend that students move in to campus. Revenue from the sale goes to funding expenses for the following year, Freid said.

“The program is designed to be self-sustaining,” he says. According to Freid, the sale has other monetary benefits — it’s saved the university about $15,000 over the last five years in trash removal costs and it’s saved students and families some $250,000 “because they’re buying used instead of new,” he said. Whatever is left over after the sale is donated to organizations in the community — Freid says the sale has donated six tons of food and clothing to local shelters. And, beyond the monetary benefits, Freid says, the sale helps volunteers develop leadership and planning skills.

As Trash 2 Treasure became a success, Freid and the other student volunteers who started it began looking at ways to bring the idea to other campuses. In 2013, Freid graduated from UNH and launched PLAN, which helps student groups at colleges and universities work on eliminating waste at their own institutions. PLAN provides leadership training for students and offers help with expanding recycling and compost programs, establishing campus thrift stores, and creating policies for eliminating the use of disposable plastics, among other initiatives, according to Freid.

“We help campuses think holistically … figuring out how they can tackle their waste stream,” he says. Currently, 45 colleges are part of the PLAN network, though not all host sales like Trash 2 Treasure.

These days, Freid is more focused on growing PLAN, fundraising, and writing grants for the nonprofit. Student volunteers keep Trash 2 Treasure going each year, and though he’s no longer going around campus and picking up sofas, Freid still helps each year.

“I stop by to help as a community volunteer once in a while,” he says. “I have a special place in my heart for the program.”

The Trash 2 Treasure sale takes place Friday, Aug. 28, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday, Aug. 29, noon- 5 p.m. at the University of New Hampshire’s Whittemore Center, 128 Main St., Durham. The sale is open to the public. 

Top of page: Student volunteers at the 2014 Trash 2 Treasure sale at UNH.       photo by John Benford