Shannon Hughes, Eugene Lang ’26, Creates Dorm Donation Project, Recycling Program for Home Goods
The end of the school year is always a busy time for students, faculty, and staff at The New School. Students are showcasing their capstone and thesis projects, while also finishing final papers and sitting for exams. In the midst of all that, they are also moving out of their residence halls, which often leads to significant spring cleaning.
Shannon Hughes, Eugene Lang ‘26, witnessed the amount of gently-used items casually tossed out during her first year living in the Stuy Park residence hall. After speaking with her mom, she realized that because many students couldn’t travel home with their home goods, which meant they simply discarded them, even though they could be recycled for use by future students. Thanks to a class she took this spring, Waste and Justice, she decided to make the Dorm Donation Project into her final, and thus the new recycling program was born.
“When beginning this project I mentioned the idea to as many of my peers as possible,” she explains. “All of them supported the project. Many even said they had thought of something similar and remarked that the amount of waste from students during move-out is astronomical, even students who had never lived in the residence halls. But it only felt like a dream to go around with a Uhaul and pick up all of the perfectly fine home items and bring them back to safety. I knew this project had to start now. I couldn’t know all of this information and do nothing about it.”
While the university has donation spots in place for clothing, food, and art supplies, there is nothing for home goods, which accounts for the majority of trash every May from students. Hughes came upon a statistic during her research that alarmed her, and helped compel her to action: “The average college student produces a whopping 640 pounds of trash annually, the majority of which accumulates at the end of the year during move-out,” according to Planet Aid. This equates to 6.5 million pounds of trash for the entire New School student population.
“The Dorm Donation Project has a grassroots approach to giving back to the New School community,” she says. “We want students to have the opportunity to pass down-home items to future generations. I can imagine a future where we implement a system of physically marking on items the year they were donated and see how long they stay in the recycling system without being thrown out. I think this would be a true test of consumerism among the college student population. This is what a circular economy looks like!”
Hughes is also aware of the cost of moving into residence halls each year, and hopes that a recycling project like hers could alleviate some of the financial burden of living in a city as expensive as New York. Additionally, the environmental impact is significant, as students will be reusing items that would otherwise occupy a landfill.
“That’s why this project is so important not only to our finances but to our environment. The impact of these items not only on landfills but also on the production of these items is the direct impact of climate change and health problems. This comes from the fire retardancy on the household products we use every day. From cups and plates to bedsheets and hairbrushes.”
Hughes received support from the University Student Senate, Frugalicious Mamas, Student Leadership & Involvement (SLI), Food Pantry, Housing Operations, Residential Life, Facilities Management, and many more groups. While the entire process was not without a variety of challenges, she is encouraged by the response of the New School Community, and eager to be on campus when the new semester begins, in order to start giving out free home goods.
“We often treat things as if they have an expiration date when they don’t. I find they have more value, better quality, and quite frankly, an aura about them that new items simply do not have. I love knowing my items have a story or have had a life longer than mine. Consumerism has ruined the idea that when you purchase something you are making an investment, an investment that that thing should last you a lifetime. I firmly believe that if it doesn’t last you a lifetime then it’s not worth purchasing.”
Come August, there will be a Free Sale on the 24th and 25th in the Event Cafe. All New School students and community members are welcome to take donated items, which includes mini-fridges, pots, pans, air fryers, mattress toppers, pillows, lamps, rugs, full-length mirrors, shelves, tables, and smaller things like Windex, feminine hygiene products, toilet paper, boxes plastic baggies, and more. For more information and details on how to get involved, follow along on Instagram at DormDonationProject.
“I am proud of all of the people who helped me jumpstart this project, my friends, volunteers and coworkers, student leaders, university staff and faculty, the RDs, RAs and CAs, university departments & RSOs, and especially the students who took the time to donate. They gave their free time during finals to help me organize donations and prep them for storage over the summer. But ultimately I am proud of everything. I have never attempted a project of this magnitude before and it was very successful! I met my goals for this project in a short amount of time and I think this gives me the skills and knowledge to tackle other big projects in the future. I hope this project sets an example for other students to get involved in the community and make change where we need it. The power is in us as students to make change.”