Don’t ditch it — donate
Thanks to the Tar Heel Treasure program, just about any unwanted item a student has can be kept out of the landfill.
When students finish the spring semester and leave Carolina’s campus each year, they take plenty of knowledge and new skills with them.
But they also leave quite a bit behind.
“From what I’ve observed, I’d say 50 to 60 percent of their personal items they don’t keep, or don’t want to keep,” said Debbie Bousquet, Facilities Management Coordinator for UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of Housing and Residential Education.
That’s why the Department’s former director, Larry Hicks, helped start Tar Heel Treasure, along with the University’s Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling. Hicks modeled Tar Heel Treasure after a similar program at Penn State, which collected items students no longer wanted or needed when they moved out of their residence halls.
The idea is simple: don’t ditch it — donate it.
“Pretty much everything that the students want to get rid of we can accept,” said Amy Preble, Recycling Coordinator for the Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling. “Broken electronics go to an e-waste recycler. Broken futon frames go to a scrap metal recycler.”
Students can leave their unwanted items in designated areas within their residence halls. Food, toiletries and even used bedding have a place in the Tar Heel Treasure program thanks to partnerships with Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers (TROSA) and other non-profits.
TROSA runs a thrift shop and residential program and uses the unwanted food, toiletries and other items to sustain treatment and work training programs. Used bedding is given to PAWS 4 Ever, an animal adoption organization.
Bousquet and Preble say TROSA’s involvement has been key to making Tar Heel Treasure a success. During the weeks Tar Heel Treasure takes place, crews from TROSA collect items from residence halls across campus twice a day.
It’s a lot of effort, but it has significant effect: since 2009, the Tar Heel Treasure program has kept nearly 207 tons of material out of landfills.
“It’s important to make sure that we divert as much from the landfill as possible,” Preble said. “It reduces greenhouse gas emissions. It fulfills the University’s mission to do that.”
“It’s been an amazing program,” Bousquet said. “The student response, I think, has been great. They’re calling us before we get the donation stations set up.”
Preble hopes Tar Heel Treasure helps students leave campus with another lesson in their minds — one that has nothing to do with time spent in a classroom.
“You see all of this stuff piling up and you think about what’s happening to it,” Preble said. “I think it sends kind of an overall message of reducing waste and thinking about what you do with your stuff, how much you buy and how much you throw away.”
