My guess is that the college does not want to allow students to dump their mostly-garbage on the neighbors.

At the same time, wealthy students who will throw out items of value may feel they have better things to do than separate out items to donate. That’s especially true if they wait until the last minute.

Overall, separating items to donate from one’s trash is a way to avoid paying to dispose of trash at the dump and a way to perhaps be charitable or environmentally conscious. I’m not convinced it’s all that effective as an altruistic move. If the college sets up a place to dump for free, I’m not at all surprised many people take advantage of it without another thought.

*Unless it is an old non-wide LCD monitor. Nobody wants those...

People put it out to feel good about themselves.

Once I saw a bunch of random wires with a label, “FREE - great for art projects.” It’s like thanks for letting me know I was going to knock on doors until I found the right person to make an offer to.

At my wife's alma mater, the way move out in the dorms worked was that you had 24hrs after your last final and then had to be gone. That didn't really leave a lot of time for a lot of people that had maybe two checked bags and a carry on to work with, and had spent the previous time focused on studying for their finals.

Generous. When I was taking part in student exchange I had to be gone from the dorms a week before one of my finals.

I could stay I think up to 12 months after graduating. And it was entirely up to you when you wanted to graduate after fulfilling the criteria. I myself took the papers half a year after finishing my master's thesis, and then left the student apartment half a year after that.

No clue. I had a boyfriend at the time, so I stayed at his place. Other people did similar things. Or just slept on the sofa in the common area, while the students who stayed in the dorms would let them in through the main door.

It's not really realistic to make this a moral issue, IMO.

- give 2-3 extra days for students to move out.

- maybe partner with a few moving/freight companies? you’d bring them a lot of customers and they could provide a good rate.

This is human, and fine. But I’m 100% certain this author is grossly overestimating the value of the junk they believe they are “saving” and how much of it they will actually use. This is the rationalizing of a budding hoarder.

The time pressure does these kids a huge service by forcing them to clear out stuff that doesn’t actually matter so they don’t feel the need to buy a 4,000 sq ft McMansion to store their college bean bag chair and every other piece of junk they’ve ever owned.

Ultimately, the authors children will run across these “salvaged goods” in a decades-untouched pile in her basement upon her death in about 66 years.

Or heating a 4,000 sq foot home for 60 years to store said items in unused piles and then having your children eventually throw those items away anyways when you die?

Realistically it's going to be 1 of those 2 scenarios.

Every item takes space, and space costs money. Space often costs quite a bit of money. If I'm paying $2000/m for a 750sqft apartment (not unreasonable for many metros), then every square foot costs me ~$3/month minimum (often quite a bit more because I also have to heat, clean, and organize it as well).

How many months of storage does it take to mean you're literally losing money by keeping an item?

For old shoes? Not that many... if you haven't worn a pair of shoes in a few years, you've likely spent more than $100 storing it.

For bad furniture? Not that many... it takes a lot of space. That crappy couch no one wants to sit on anymore can be costing you almost $100/month.

For that old bag you overpaid on and don't even like that much? Now you're just lighting more money on fire for every month you hang onto it.

---

Mentally shifting the equation to a more realistic "opportunity cost" model for items is healthy. Posts like the top level article are, respectfully, a chock of bullshit. Those kids might have messed up when they originally overpaid for a luxury item, but I don't believe for a heartbeat they're messing up when they choose to let it go.

Go work in a place that takes donations, and you'll quickly see they do exactly the same calculus. Goodwill might take your whole bag of donations, but they will absolutely throw 70%+ of it away right off the bat.

They can't afford to try to reuse your crappy stuff for months, quietly losing money storing it.

The nicer consignment shops won't even pretend - they'll just flat out refuse to accept most of your junk. It's not even worth sorting through.

There is usually no opportunity cost though. Those shoes you keep around have no margin cost for the apartment until you need a bigger place.

I still have too much stuff and its a fraction of what my parents had.

(Perhaps this is more of an American thing?)

I think you're going to be in for a shock... 2/3rds of the donations go right in the trash (they will optimistically call it salvage/recycling).

A bag will come in full of items. A small subset of that bag will be pulled out to go on shelves. The majority of the bag will be sent to "salvage" (trash/recycling).

Some folks have a curated selection of items they bring in that mostly get accepted, but usually the folks doing that just take it to a real consignment shop, or sell it on something like facebook marketplace.

Generally - a large portion of the donations are exactly this situation: used items in a big trashbag that come in after a move (or eviction [or death]).

They go in the trash. Where the owner probably should have put them a while back. I also don't like how much churn exists in our modern consumption economy - but it's not doing favors to pretend it doesn't exist. Much of our "stuff" is low cost, semi-consumable items that will end up trashed - by design. I don't like it either, but saying "Donate it" is like pretending recycling is going to solve plastic pollution.

I think the reality is that online marketplaces basically fill that gap, though.

Most folks who have items that they know aren't trash try to sell them themselves online these days (or best case - use things like "BuyNothing" groups).

But if you can't move it on facebook marketplace, the sad reality is that goodwill and the like are also probably going to put it in the trash if you donate it to them.

Even places like homeless shelters are very picky (exclusively "new" or "gently used" donations of specific items).

There's just a lot of work in "matching" used items to people who want/need those items, and most times the value of the item is lower than the value of that work (even when that work is heavily discounted by volunteers).

The furniture (i.e., "bean bag chair") I can totally understand why they'd discard it. The only thing that bothers me then is, will they buy a similar item for next year? Because if they will, then this stuff doesn't "doesn't matter" and therefore the problem actually exists, if only because it feeds into the mindless consumer attitude which leads to over production of goods that end up in landfills if not in someone else's hoard pile.

It just seems that some such organization never get to this.

Like at this stage? I'd love to find a quiet place to run.

But in the meantime, I'm not studying for finals or having a kid. Just buying plant-based mayonnaise like a boring adult and scraping lizard crap out of cages in what some could see as a patronizing metaphorical cholesterol or dendrite decaying act of desperate cleansing against time.

So yeah, if the kids at Duke can buy new shoes and time doesn't matter to them, and there's a high likelihood they'll be reused and it's all by choice? Cool.

Choices are good.

It's very possible for the cost of transport to exceed the value of the goods, especially if one is flying to one's next destination.

> Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items?

This I can't help with. As far as I have seen, this is a common practice everywhere in the northeast US. The police don't always love it, but that doesn't really prevent people from doing it.

If you mean why would "authorities" care, there's a lot of people that put what amounts to trash on the sidewalk and then move to a new apartment without cleaning it up, or else just ignore that they left it in front of their house until "someone else" takes care of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_designer)

But within the houses system, Valentino sits somewhere specific. Hence I am being specific about The House of Valentino.

Valentino = Warhol.

They're pretty cool, I recommend learning about them, personally, I did a whole degree on it...won 4 Emmy awards being one...silly me...

Congrats on your Emmys. Not sure why your interests include something as mundane as shoes and arguing with opinionated idiot on the internet. You obviously have better things to think about.

Because transport costs more than the item? Especially if you are travelling by plane.

Sure there might be cheaper transport options but the opportunity cost of arranging them quickly dwarfs the value.

> Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items?

If you are in a university setting where maybe 500 people are leaving all at the same time, i imagine university admin may not be thrilled at the prospect of cleaning up after this.

Throwing away things that could be sold could be a matter of (1) frustration/exhaustion with the end of the semester, (2) no place in their car / plane luggage for extra items, (3) indifference of kids who don’t know the value of a dollar (the Ballenciaga slides are literally the most expensive version of a slide you can buy — I usually get mine for less than $10).

On the street might be a better solution, but in the US you can be fined for littering (“dumping”) if you abandon items on someone else’s property. Lots of local laws in the USA are designed to maintain high property values (while subsidizing the very expensive police departments).

Or you know, them being rational actors who know spending an hour to sell something for $5 is not a good use of their time.

The author did find a couple of allegedly more expensive items, but is also e.g. talking about used pyjama bottoms. How much money do you really think you are going to get for used pyjama bottoms? Is it worth it? Almost certainly no.

>Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items?

Often they are, but most of the people already have their own stuff and limited space for additional stuff. When I lived in a dorm, anything larger items you didn't want you could put on the 3rd floor lounge area and the school would donate or dispose of them. Any other students were free to take that stuff, but unless you had preplanned to have a truck or uhaul, you could only take so much.

More generally, it's dumb that it's so much more work to give something away than to trash it - or even buy it in the first place. Our logistics for buying stuff is incredibly efficient, for reusing we're stuck in the 15th century - everything done artisanally (and with free guilt-labour)

Same thing happens on Craigslist: You can post an item for sale for a fair price - and it may take days or weeks - or you can post it free and it will gone in hours (to someone who will resell it perhaps but whatever.)

you'll have a dozen people immediately claim it and ask you to hold it for them, but actually getting rid of the item is another story. maybe 1/4 or less actually take it. I recommend donating to a thrift store (even one of the "evil" ones where the CEO makes $600k) or posting it in proper category, putting $1 for the price, and saying "free" in the item description. As opposed to using CL's "free" category.

From: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit...

"The median family income for a Duke student is $186,700. A significant portion of Duke students, 69%, come from families in the top 20% of earners, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Additionally, only 1.6% of students come from low-income backgrounds"

Does it? I don't know anything about Duke, but a lot of colleges I know of tell your tuition is around that price. However dig deeper and you discover it is almost impossible to not get scholarships thus making the real price cheaper. I know of one school near me that automatically gives everyone a 40% scholarship, then they look at your background to figure out if you qualify for anything more.

Going thru literally thousands of items (many hobbies, too small apartment in short) and deciding where to pack which and what to throw away is gruelling.

If I had choice (I wanted to get deposit back and not leave a mess), I'd leave most of that after picking the most important items, as a lot of them can be replaced cheap for when (or if ever) I will need those items again.

But

> First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination?

that is just weird (unless food is something that would spoil in few days I guess)

It's common in the US too.

People do put things on the curb other times of the year, but a dedicated clean up day helps everyone - you know when it is your turn, and the scrappers don't waste gas driving down dead end streets.

Boston does this! The locals refer to it as “Allston Christmas”, it takes place every September 1st, and it’s a great time to scavenge furniture and appliances, even computers and electronics.

My big concern remains bedbugs, personally. As a renter myself, I don’t have the facilities to disinfect and kill off any pests that might’ve hopped on between the old apartment and the curb, which narrows my selection considerably. Still, lots of students and locals partake in the yearly turnover tradition and walk away with new room furniture sets!

There are also plentiful thrift stores which take donations. The profound selfishness of throwing this stuff out rather than passing it on so eventually some person with less can have a better life -- the thrift stores generally are non-profits supporting the homeless, hospices, and so forth -- boggles my mind.

1) Usually because they can't take it with them. A lot of students fly home, some don't have drivers license, and/or the cost to ship it third party exceeds the price of the items. It's also laziness, but I pin it mainly on practicality and cost.

2) They do, and at Santa Barbara I saw groups gathering, knowing the move-out days, to pick it up. These were migrants, homeless, and thrifty individuals. A lot of the stuff is still in its original packaging, as the parents of the student bought well intentioned but impractical gifts that never even got opened. A lot of room for better organization, but mostly folks just don't care, they're so caught up with finals and getting home that it's very far back in the list of priorities.

3) Picking through trash is a uniquely de-humanizing experience. Its one of the few things that makes me stop walking even in high-homeless areas like the Tenderloin, because I can't even imagine what it feels like to be picking through trash for items to sell, or particularly foodstuffs.

Leaving it in the "trash" room is the equivalent of this in large apartment buildings ime. Note these reusable items were set aside, not tossed in the dumpster. I would agree the curb is better, where any passerby could take it, but in buildings large enough to have staff on-site that isn't tolerated because it would make the property "look bad."

> Third, I was surprised the author felt bad. A sign that there is unfortunately some stigma in re-using things.

Ever since my wife and I got married 20+ years ago, we've had a clothesline, and we are constantly line-drying our clothes, weather permitting. I've had plenty of weird looks and probably even a few comments. I definitely have had the impression that people look down on me for doing so, but weird stigma be damned.

I visited a friend's apartment, and he described the decor as "a mixture of TarJay and Hippie Christmas."

We also regularly leave stuff by the curb and it gets taken. Conveniently, you leave it out a day or two before trash day, and if it's not taken, then you can throw it in the trash.