One Redditor worried about waste posted several alarming photos of overflowing dumpsters courtesy of their local university's move-in day.
On-campus housing sees many students moving in and out every semester. That means several times a year, new residents are trying to furnish their dorm rooms with everything they need while departing students are frantically getting rid of items that won't fit in their new accommodations or that they can't afford to ship.
Some savvy students try to reclaim useful items from the folks moving out, and some schools even have programs for donating them to charity. But as this Redditor pointed out, many items (or their packaging) simply end up in the dumpster.
"Iowa State University's second day of on-campus, undergrad move-in," said the disgusted user. The 12 attached photos showed huge industrial-sized dumpsters piled high with trash, with even more heaped up on the ground around them. Much of the visible packaging belonged to new microwaves, vacuum cleaners, and similar appliances.
"There were probably a dozen more that were full," said the Redditor. "All of them were empty in the morning."
As several users pointed out, the dumpsters might not have been quite as bad as they looked. "Would take up much less room if the cardboard was broken down and not just thrown out boxes," said one commenter.
"I would expect them to at least break down the boxes so they could be recycled," said another user.
According to the original poster, the recyclable cardboard was still a major problem.
"They were not broken down and they were not recycled; instead, they were littered near the dumpsters, with no regard for where they end up," the user said in a comment.
They also didn't like to see so many new appliances being bought just to be thrown away in a year or two. "This is simply mindless consumption," they said. "None of this was purchased with long-term use in mind. … This waste could be drastically cut down if the university sold/supplied the basics."
"It kills me to see so many microwave boxes," another user agreed. "I told my friend to never buy small appliances new; they're always at the thrift store. … Toasters, rice cookers, even an instant pot, all at the thrift store. It was heartbreaking to see all the coffee pots people threw out when Keurigs became a thing."
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