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I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

indyweek.com

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Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#211

Post by ajb »

Suppafly wrote: post #172
dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

This happens at every university on move out day, especially if they have a lot of international students that need to fly out of the country. >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 t…

Yeah. Given that they all move out on the same day, the most economically efficient way is to organise the reuse collection centrally, as some unis mentioned in the article do.

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)

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#212

Post by Reasoning »

amalcon wrote: post #160
dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

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

Can confirm it's common in the upper Midwest as well. My college apartment was furnished mostly with stuff we got from curbs. Never heard of the police taking issue with it.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#214

Post by PunchyHamster »

dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

I've recently moved from apartment that I lived in for 10+ years. I can understand that.

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)

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#215

Post by tdeck »

in_cahoots wrote: post #149
tdeck wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everybody talks about evironmentalism execept they don't actually practice it. I think this is just a lack of planning and options for many students. Think about it - it's the end of the year, you've got a pile of exams to study for, and then a week or two later you've got to be out of the dorms. Many students don't have a car to haul things to Goodwill or sell them further afield, and nobody on campus wants to buy…

Do colleges not store stuff for students who will be back in the fall? My undergraduate school did this (and had a large contingent of students doing research over the summer), so graduation day just meant that furniture was mostly moved around and snatched up by other students, or even stayed in place as the students changed dorm rooms.

At my school there was a service you could pay for that charged by the box, however when I graduated I had to leave a lot of stuff behind (granted I didn't have any $900 furniture).

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#216

Post by creer »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #207
creer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thrift store pricing: It's disappointing. > You can barely give away china these days. [...] it would just sit there. Most times I look, it's overpriced. Very much so. Price lower. Obviously? > Most fast fashion is worthless [$6 for a piece that's new for $10] Well duh? Price lower? Obviously? Around here it feels like thrift stores have not noticed the revolution in pricing for online, delivered, made-in-china-but-n…

> Thrift store pricing: It's disappointing. When I read things like this, I laugh when people think that it's possible to bring much manufacturing back to the US. The thrift store I volunteered at was for an animal charity. After paying rent and some salaries, the general rule of thumb was that we were able to convert volunteer hours to profit at about minimum wage rates (and I mean ~$8/hr rates, not "living wage" ra…

> The issue is that crap is produced incredibly cheaply

Not all of this is crap, far from it. I am selective - and get good results buying online (no choice - brick-and-mortar stock is sad and too uniform.)

But thing is, "incredibly cheaply" is the reality of the world. We can ignore it or we can live with it.

To reconcile with you: more freedom in pricing by whoever does that task might make sense. And some sections here do have a more interesting strategy where clothes are priced higher initially, then come down in price systematically week after week. Which the tableware departments never seem to use.

> we couldn't sell it for less without essentially making the thrift store not turn a profit, even though the products were donated.

And then you do have a problem also, because the result is no-sale, less-traffic and sending people to fast fashion, and Ikea.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#218

Post by joshvm »

matthewowen wrote: post #68

I live near UPenn. Some locals call the end of the academic year "Penn Christmas". I definitely see some resentment, but having made an international move in my life I have sympathy for it. You need to buy things to live, shipping that stuff when you move away is often very expensive and time consuming, so you condense your life down to a few suitcases and do the best you can.

Having been in this situation a few times as an adult, it's a mixture of stressful and cathartic figuring out exactly what's worth keeping, storing or giving away.

The best approach I've found is to standardize packing into 60L industrial Euro crates. They're inexpensive, very strong, practically waterproof (will survive both puddles and rain) and you can even air freight them at close to $100/box if the contents weigh under 32kg. Most of the expense in shipping is volume and people massively underestimate how much they own. If you can keep things compact and dense, ground/sea freight is inexpensive if you don't have to do it very often and there is no practical weight restriction.

Furniture only makes sense if you can re-claim 80+% of the void space in items like shelves, or if it completely flat packs, and if the cost of re-acquisition would be high. Shipping companies usually have minimum billable volume (say 2 cubic meters). I was able to send an apartment's worth of contents in the same volume that a couch would occupy.

For everything else, either buy quality used things that you can sell without much depreciation, or cheap used things that you don't mind thrifting afterwards.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#220

Post by LanceH »

thinkcontext wrote: post #205
dylan604 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why not just lower the tuition by 40%?

Because the really rich and international do pay full cost which means they can lower it for lower income students.

Really rich isn't that high a bar, you'll find out when it comes to tuition.
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