Students moving out of campus housing this time of year often leave behind a large amount of waste, from extra-long sheets to mini refrigerators. At the University of San Diego, a group of students sought to address the problem by developing a sustainability initiative called EcoExit.
Launched at the end of the last academic year, EcoExit encourages students to place items like rugs, lamps and other dorm essentials in donation pods on campus instead of throwing them away.
In the program’s first year, students, in partnership with the university’s Changemaker Hub, diverted 4.3 tons of reusable items from landfills. This year, the amount nearly doubled to over 8.5 tons, said Ali Taliaferro, a third-year communication major and co-founder of the initiative, reflecting growing student participation in sustainability efforts on campus.
“I remember my freshman year, students were throwing out TVs and other perfectly good items into the dumpsters, and we still saw that even this semester,” Taliaferro said. “Especially at a school that’s known for sustainability, I was really upset that there wasn’t some sort of initiative when I was a freshman.”
Taliaferro said the effort has demonstrated how reducing waste can lower costs for the university. Last year, EcoExit cost about $6,000 to operate, including bringing three storage pods onto campus. At the same time, she noted that the university had to remove and replace two overflowing dumpsters during move-out, which cost roughly $3,000 per dumpster.
“This year we actually have fewer dumpsters on campus and none of them were completely full,” Taliaferro said. Instead, more students utilized what has grown to six storage pods. “We’re trying to show the [University of San Diego] that this initiative supports the school’s values as a change-making and environmentally sustainable campus.”
Last year, EcoExit diverted 4.3 tons of reusable dorm items from landfills.
The donation pods: The donated belongings are stored over the summer until move-in weekend in the fall, when students organize a makeshift thrift store called EcoShop. Incoming students can then browse donated dorm essentials and take what they need, free of charge.
Lilly Tebaldi, a second-year sociology major and co-founder of the initiative, said EcoShop was so popular during its first year that all the donated items were claimed within 90 minutes.
“There was this aha moment for students to be like, ‘Oh, shoot, I could donate to [EcoExit] and I can come back in the fall when I’m moving back in and get different resources for free,’” Tebaldi said. “Students started connecting the dots and realizing that it was a whole system.”
Other Campus Efforts
EcoExit reflects a growing trend in higher education aimed at creating more sustainable move-out practices and reducing the number of reusable items sent to landfills each year.
- Middlebury College operates reuse trailers where students donate usable items during move-out that are later made available to students and community organizations.
- The University of Massachusetts Amherst runs New2U, a long-running student thrift store and move-out collection effort.
- George Washington University operates Green Move-Out, a donation-based initiative that diverts more than 65,000 pounds of reusable goods annually through residence hall collection drives.
Tebaldi added that the team intentionally designed EcoShop to support first-generation and low-income students, allowing them to shop before the event opened to the broader student body.
Taliaferro said the initiative also encouraged students to rethink consumption and waste on campus.
“The problem wasn’t just the waste that students were generating at the end of the move-out,” Taliaferro said. “At the end of the day, it’s students buying a lot of things that they don’t really need, and maybe only need for a semester, so we saw that as an opportunity to be able to store those items over the summer and then make them available to students who are moving in during the fall.”
She added that bedding, textiles and other items that could not fit in the storage pods were donated to a local veterans’ thrift store.
Last year, the team’s primary focus was launching EcoExit and building the program from the ground up. This year, Harper Murphy, a second-year psychology major and co-founder of the initiative, said the emphasis shifted toward expanding campus awareness and educating students about sustainable move-out practices.
That effort included creating social media content and digital fliers, reaching out to professors and speaking in classrooms about the importance of reducing waste during move-out. The team also recruited about 40 student volunteers to help manage EcoExit logistics throughout move-out week.
“This year, because we had more time, we really wanted to improve student engagement on campus,” Murphy said. “Lilly was sending hundreds of emails to professors asking, ‘Can we please present about EcoExit in your class?’ and Ali did a lot of work on posters and digital fliers. We wouldn’t have had nearly as much student engagement without those efforts.”
Lilly Tebaldi (far right) and Ali Taliaferro (second from right) co-founded EcoExit to help their peers reduce move-out waste.
Continuing the momentum: Tebaldi said expanding the number of donation pods across campus this year helped make EcoExit more accessible for students, and she hopes it continues to grow in the future.
“I love my roommates, but when move-out comes, everyone gets pretty lazy because it’s just exhausting with finals and moving out and saying goodbye—it’s just the worst time of the year,” Tebaldi said. “One of my roommates called me after she moved out and said, ‘I hope you know EcoExit was great, because there was a pod right next to our apartment and I just dumped everything and didn’t have to think about it.’”
Taliaferro noted that convenience has been one of the biggest factors in encouraging students to participate.
“We’ve interviewed students and tried to figure out what the pain point is around moving out,” Taliaferro said. “We’ve focused on making everything as easy as possible, whether that’s clear signage or showing students exactly where to place items.”
She added that students appeared to better understand the initiative this year, with donation piles often forming outside the pods by the time organizers reopened them each morning.
For Murphy, one of the most meaningful parts of EcoExit has been watching the program remain student-driven while also strengthening friendships among the organizers.
“I have enjoyed every second of working with these two and have learned and grown so much from them,” Murphy said. “We work well as a team, but we’re also really good friends outside of this, and we hope EcoExit continues being a student-led community.”
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