I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
1–10 of 341 posts
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#2> Looking at the data, Duke’s per-undergraduate donation rate (about 4.9 pounds) is comparable to that at other wealthy private universities like Princeton (7.6 pounds) and Georgetown (6.1 pounds). Duke actually outperforms some schools with similar student demographics like the University of Chicago (0.8 pounds) and Northwestern (0.9 pounds). Most large public universities hover around one pound per student.
This seems to assume that all students are “discarding” the same quantity of items each year. It also assumes that the only student donations that occur are ones that are tracked by their university. It’s hard to believe that it is true.
A place like UChicago is not known for being a party school; I doubt Balenziaga or Valentino items are in high demand. I would assume that people aren’t all that into fashion that goes out of style quickly, thus they probably aren’t throwing as much away. But maybe that’s just an “unfair” stereotype I have about UChicago students ;)
One thing I do know, however, is that up in the area of Northwestern, there is a strong tradition of donating things to churches and synagogues, who then hold rummage sales. There is even a “rummage sale season” and a circuit - every weekend there is a different set holding sales. It seems that any such donations here would not show up in any data that this author has collected.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#3> Looking at the data, Duke’s per-undergraduate donation rate (about 4.9 pounds) is comparable to that at other wealthy private universities like Princeton (7.6 pounds) and Georgetown (6.1 pounds). Duke actually outperforms some schools with similar student demographics like the University of Chicago (0.8 pounds) and Northwestern (0.9 pounds). Most large public universities hover around one pound per student. This se…
I assume that "donation" also doesn't include graduates giving things to returning students. No way to even track that.
This amount doesn't really surprise me. This has been happening ever since students were in dorms. Even in my little liberal arts school, people would dumpster dive for stuff in the dorms where the rich kids lived. The dedicated divers would even go around after Thanksgiving break and the end of fall semester, when the kids who were too into partying left (or were kicked out) and just left stuff behind that the RA threw out.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#4[flagged]
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#5I did this once. I was a RA, and there must've been at least 6 mini fridges left behind. I was staying for the summer, so I cleaned the ones that were salvageable and sold them on Craigslist. Earned some easy beer money.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#6[flagged]
What activism do you object to?
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#7In Boston move in / out day (Sept. 1) is called "Allston Christmas". The students leave TONS of stuff.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#8This is not surprising to me a graduate of a school with a similar profile to Duke. The student body is composed of highly wealthy domestic students but also insanely wealthy international student body.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#9townies in university cities have been dumpstering during move-out week since time immemorial. i remember finding an entire complete set of MS Office 9x on floppies in a dumpster when i was in 5th grade :) among many other things over the years. even once found what would have been a treasure trove of 'adult' videos only 5 years prior... 8 hour vhs bootlegs with 3-4 "films" each. but that was 2007ish and VCRs were mostly gone by then.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#10[flagged]
who are you addressing here? the $199 shipping was not in reference to the expensive shoes. where are you getting "protesters are just rich kids who throw away $900 sneakers"?
this is a fully nonsensical response. hallucinatory, even.