Can you cut 1 Tonne of carbon pollution out of your life?
Take the challengeWhen you are done with furniture and you can't take it with you, it usually ends up in the dumpster. Well, not for Alex Freid...
Alex was moving out of his dorm after freshman year, when he found a futon in a dumpster and thought to himself "That's perfect. I can grab that futon and use it for my apartment next year." Only then to discover there was piles of abandoned items in perfectly good condition just sitting in the dumpster.
Whats more, there were dozens of dumpsters exactly the same.
This lead to Alex and a group of his friends a the University of New Hampshire to start an organisation called Trash2Treasure!
These amazing students collect usable dumpster destined items during the move out month of May, and put it into storage during the summer. When the students return in Autumn, they sell it all back to the students in a garage sale!
And what's more? They use the money they make from the move-in sale to pay for the program, allowing them to run it again the following year.
Check out this amazing video:
These students also set up a non-for profit organisation called Post-Landfill Action Network, or PLAN aiming to encourage students all over the country to set up programs to reduce waste on campus.
Since it's emergence in 2013, PLAN has expanded to 50 campuses nationwide, and is growing larger! Next step is to take it to the virtual world by creating a massive online network of resources and information.
Action happening in Universities around the world is incredible. These are our future leaders and innovators, these are the people who are going to be making changes in my life time and for generations to come. Zero-waste is a big issue right now, and we're all a part of it - the problem and the solution.
Mindsets are changing, people don't want to be part of a throwaway society any longer.