By Anonymous
The human-environment interaction on campus that I felt could use more sustainability efforts is waste reduction near on campus residential housing . My main focus for this assignment was to reduce and repurpose waste by starting a campus thrift store and donation center. The primary areas of textile and electronic waste on campus occurs in and around freshman residential buildings like presidents park and the commons. On specific days like moveout day, students produce a lot of waste that they would just rather not take back home that could be reused by other students. A campus thrift store could reduce a lot of annual campus waste, as well as produce an income for future sustainability efforts around campus.
With the introduction of a campus consignment and donation center, we could reduce the amount of textile and electronic waste not only GMU produces, but also help reduce luxury textile production waste as well. Annually, students produce around 640 pounds of waste each year and most of which happens around move out day at the end of the year (Flatgard,2017). With the large student body and always increasing freshman class, this accumulates tons of waste that could be repurposed and sold again to students in need. A campus thrift store and donation center could help towards the Sustainable Development Goals such as SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities, SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production, and SDG 15 Life on land.
On the governing side of this interaction would be not only the consumers and producers, but also the mason governing body as well. To get this project started, there would need to be initial funding from GMU for things such as donation centers/bins, store location, and employees/volunteers. There are ways to get funding from the sustainability department such as the patriot green fund, but I believe it may have to go through mason directly for legality reasons. The office of sustainability does tackle our waste problems when it comes to food consumption, but little for reusable waste (Zero Waste,2022). Another user in this system would be the people donating their goods and unwanted items. This process would need to be more beneficial to them compared to just throwing away their belongings. I believe to achieve this, not only would we need to make the process easily accessible, but also maybe a sort or reward such as coupons to on campus food vendors/dining halls for a certain donation quantity to increase incentive.
Social, cultural, and economic factors play a certain role in mason thrift’s success on campus. With the increase of thrifting in younger demographics in comparison to earlier years, Mason campus would be able to get prime location and visibility to one of the thrift industries key demographics. In the United States there has been a cultural increase in society to buy second hand compared to designer luxury brands. Thrifting and consignment has been a growing industry in recent years with second hand apparel sales in thrift alone reaching around $12 billion annually (Yurchisin,2014). Lastly, economically a thrift store would be a perfect fit for college students wanting to remain fashionable but don’t want to break the bank. College is expensive with paying for tuition, room and board, as well as a meal plan that can get up to tens of thousands of dollars a year. A thrift store on campus would be able to meet the needs of a struggling college student as well as reduce annual waste, and better the environment around our community.
With the introduction of a campus thrift store and donation center, George Mason would be able to reduce the amount of textile and electronic waste entering our landfills each year (James,2018). Not only will we reduce landfill waste, but mason would also drastically reduce its ecological impact on the local environment on land and in the waters around mason. By reducing our ecological impact on the environment, not only will mason clean up our community but it could also potentially increase freshman recruitment. For mason to succeed in this plan, donation centers would need to be readily available and maintained to ensure quality for things such as electronics. A simple action could drastically reduce annual waste on campus, increase quality of life on campus, as well a potentially increase new student retention. Currently, I do not believe mason is doing anything relative to combat the annual student waste problem on campus.
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References
Flatgard, J., Lynn, K., Phelps, A., Thompson, M., & Torres, R. (2017). A campus waste reduction program. USD RED. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://red.library.usd.edu/sustainability-projects/3/
James, A. (2018, April 20). Campus thrift store: A small step towards big change. UR Scholarship Repository. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://scholarship.richmond.edu/environmentalstudies-seniorseminar/26/
Yurchisin (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), J., Woo (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), H., & Watchravesringkan (University of North Carolina and Greensboro), K. (2014, January 1). An investigation of socially responsible consumers’ behavior in Thrift Stores. International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://www.iastatedigitalpress.com/itaa/article/id/2819/
Hall, S., & Chester, A.-B. (2021, April 29). Thrifting: Sustainable or just a trend? Proceedings of Student Research and Creative Inquiry Day. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://publish.tntech.edu/index.php/PSRCI/article/view/854
Zero waste. Office of Sustainability. (n.d.). Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://green.gmu.edu/campus-sustainability/zero-waste/