Every spring, college campuses across the country are faced with a deluge of waste as students moving home for the summer discard thousands of reusable items. Then, in the fall, students moving back to campus buy many of the same items new at big box stores. But this year, a network of young leaders at nine universities have provided their peers with an environmentally-friendly alternative for back-to-school shopping.

Students on campuses from New Hampshire to New Orleans have worked with a NH-based startup nonprofit called the Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN) to launch or expand programs to reuse and recycle campus move-out waste. Student volunteers on each campus collected reusable items discarded in the spring, cleaned and organized them over the summer, and will soon sell or donate them back to students at yard sales over move-in weekend. This year, PLAN’s member campuses diverted 65 tons of waste, giving consumer items a second life and saving students money on their back-to-school needs.

PLAN’s founder and executive director Alex Freid says, “I started a campus waste-reduction initiative when I was a student at UNH after I saw thousands of reusable items being sent to landfills. We realized that the problem we were addressing was one that existed on almost every college campus, so we designed a model that could be adapted to other universities. When I graduated in 2013, I launched PLAN to help expand our efforts to campuses nationwide.”

Joined by co-founder Brett Chamberlin (NYU ’13), Freid launched the Post-Landfill Action Network last June. In its first year, nine campuses became members of the network. Those schools are the University of New Hampshire; University of New Haven in Conn.; Tulane University in New Orleans; Eckerd College in Fla.; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass.; Colby Sawyer College in New London; Northeastern University in Boston; College of William and Mary in R.I.; and Purchase College, State University of New York.

Each of these campuses receives a variety of membership benefits including advising and support launching or expanding their programs, discounts on program expenses through partnerships with companies like Penske Truck Rental, and giveaways like Clif Bars and bobble reusable water bottles to keep program volunteers fueled and hydrated.

In October, PLAN will be hosting the first annual “Students for Zero Waste Conference” at the University of New Hampshire. The event will bring together students from across the country to learn about the waste crisis and to collaborate around student-led ideas. The conference will by keynoted by Dr. Paul Connett, author of “The Zero Waste Solution,” at a free and open-to-the-public event on Friday, October 3 at 6 p.m. in the Granite State Room of the UNH Memorial Union Building.

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