Students can donate
old items to be resold
Stores such as St Vincent DePaul,
Goodwill, The ARC and the Salvation
Army will accept unwanted goods
that can be recycled or resold
Tom Adams
Freelance Reporter
With summer on the horizon, many stu
dents will soon be filling boxes for the end-of
the-school-year move. If the thought of pack
ing and moving every little thing is daunting,
students should consider some ecologically
sound ways to lighten the load. There are
many options for recycling unwanted items.
Students living in the residence halls can
get rid of their unwanted goods just by step
ping out into the hallway. University Custodi
al Services places clearly marked bins in resi
dence halls to collect the items. Custodial
Services Manager Bonnie Damewood oversees
the program, which has been in operation for
the past six years. She said that just about
everything imaginable gets donated.
“We get everything from books and clothing
to iguana food,” she said. Damewood said an
average of three tons of unwanted goods are
collected each year. The items are then do
nated to local nonprofit groups, such as the
> Springfield/Marcola Family Resource Center.
For students living off campus, charitable
organizations such as St. Vincent DePaul,
Goodwill, The ARC and the Salvation Army
all offer convenient opportunities to donate.
St. Vincent DePaul has eight local retail
outlets, and according to Charlie Harvey, the
assistant to the executive director, everything
from appliances and computers to knick
knacks and plates are accepted. He said the
charitable organization has been successful at
not only reselling items, but also recycling
what is unusable.
“We receive over a million pounds of cloth
ing a year, but only two-thirds of it is usable,”
he said. “Rather than discard all extra cloth
ing into a landfill, we’ve developed a pro
gram that sells the textile to local and inter
national companies who then use the
material to make new clothes. It’s very prac
tical recycling.”
Harvey said St. Vincent’s will pick up most
items at no charge. However, there is a $5
charge for usable appliances and computer
monitors. If an appliance is not salvageable, it
can still be hauled out of your home for a
nominal $20. It is then stripped for any usable
parts and scraps are recycled.
Junior Shaun Cook said he would rather
donate his unwanted things than throw them
into a Dumpster.
“I’d go that extra step,” he said. “I mean, I
get all my stuff from there and I’m sure that
somebody else can make use of some of my
things. This year I bought a bed, coffee table,
chair, couch and lamp from St. Vincent’s.
These were all somebody else’s things and all
are perfectly usable.”
BRING Recycling is also another outlet for
unwanted items. Business Manager David
Wollner said the organization specializes in
refurbishing and reselling things one might
find in a shop or garage.
“We take things like hand tools, power tools
and all sorts of wood furniture,” he said. He
added the company only takes hard furniture
such as tables, chairs, bookcases, dressers
and file cabinets. Soft furniture such as mat
tresses and couches are not accepted.
And until June 1, BRING Recycling will also
have a drop-off site for old athletic shoes. The
program is part of Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe pro
gram, which has challenged 25 communities
nationwide to collect 5,000 pairs of athletic
shoes by June 1. The shoes will be ground up
and used as a resurfacing material for track
and athletic fields.
Tom Adams is a freelance writer for the Emerald.
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