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Dump & Run takes a bite from the waste stream
BY ALEX PROVAN
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Mining the Dumpsters at Brown University was particularly fulfilling this year. First, there was the knowledge that I was saving once-beloved items from landfill purgatory, throwing myself in the path of the cycle of the profligate consumption and waste perpetrated by college students across this great land. More notably, there was the yellow Lacoste sweater, the retro hexagonal coffee table, two boom-boxes, an Ikea lamp, a pair of mid-’90s Air Jordans, and, finally, the crown jewel of the trash crown — an Armani leather trench coat. I gave it to my friend Stephanie and now she’s in London, no doubt attracting envious stares from all who pass. For fairly obvious reasons — see my terribly soiled Dumpster-diving gear — most people don’t bother foraging through the tons of trash left by college students each year. At Brown, packs of RISD students roam up College Hill to raid the mammoth blue Dumpsters, joined by a few self-conscious Brown students and some interesting locals (one scraggly older man in sweatpants and a blazer, loading pieces of a broken chair into his truck, told me this was the only place he could find supplies for his rocket ship). Dump & Run (www.dumpandrun.org) wants to make this fringe phenomenon much more prevalent and significantly more sanitary. The idea for the nonprofit organization started when Lisa Heller, now 33, was a student at Syracuse University. She was appalled by the extravagant wastefulness in the US, especially on college campuses, and decided to "recycle good stuff back into the hands of folks who can use it," by salvaging items and donating them to Goodwill. She salvaged enough to have yard sales and donate the proceeds to nonprofits, and Dump & Run became official with two participating schools in June 2000. Fifteen colleges have since adopted D&R programs, helping to combat a particularly egregious example of wastefulness. According to D&R, the average college student produces 640 pounds of solid waste each year, including 500 disposable cups and 320 pounds of paper. It’s not that students are inherently ignorant or careless, Heller says, noting, "Students are simply reacting to their circumstances — the constraints of time, lack of systems in place to allow for reuse and recycling, and the assumption that material will simply ‘go away’ the minute it hits the trash can." To turn would-be landfill fodder into fortune, representatives of the nonprofits receiving the proceeds from the eventual ‘yard sale’ set up drop areas around a particular campus, so students can donate usable items rather than throwing them away. While Brown’s Dump & Run sale won’t be taking place until September, RISD’s own D&R program, sponsored by the Office of Student Life and Residential Life, will be dumping its trash on an anxious public this Sunday, June 22 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. at Frazier Terrace, across from the RISD Museum on Benefit Street. Paul Connelly, a RISD staff member and alumni, says he "wanted RISD to join D&R because basically we, as an institution, suck at recycling, and we throw out lots of good stuff." The RISD sale will offer books, art supplies, furniture, and clothing, among other things. All proceeds will benefit the Institute for International Cooperation and Development, a nonprofit started in 1987 to train volunteers and put them to work on a variety of projects in Third World countries. No Dumpster-diving gear required.
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