By Sustainability Coordinator Jacqui Moy
On October 18th, as part of Campus Sustainability Month, Emerson Sustainability and the Emerson Archives and Special Collections team collaborated to hold the fall Clean Out Your Office Day (COYO for short)! This is a biannual event held each semester where members of the Emerson community can drop off unwanted office supplies, books, electronics, and paper items. Emersonians can also “shop” for supplies that others have dropped off. Helpful Archives staff were also at the event to consult about how to properly destroy or preserve digital and/or physical records.
At the end of the day, the remaining items were donated to Goodwill. Overall, we diverted 248 lbs from the trash! Here’s the breakdown of the weight by category of item:
Some popular items were Apple keyboards, computer mice, and clipboards. Especially fun items donated included a couple of mini 4 tier greenhouses! You don’t see that every COYO day!
We love holding this event for the community, as it helps us reduce waste that could otherwise go into the trash. For example, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research found that 53.6 million metric tons of electronic waste, “e-waste,” was generated worldwide in 2019, and only around 17% of this is documented as being properly recycled (read more about it here). Thanks to the Emerson community, we can reduce this waste by donating items for reuse and strive towards becoming a zero-waste campus. Here’s a picture of our impressive electronics table:
Remember, refusing items you don’t need is the primary strategy to reducing waste. Reusing and repurposing items would be the next strategy, and one that we saw first-hand at COYO. One Emersonian’s trash became another Emersonian’s treasure! Our last option is to recycle unused options.
Thank you so much for participating and we look forward to seeing you at the Spring COYO event! If you couldn’t make it or have any other items you would like to donate, please refer to our Waste Guide or email sustainability@emerson.edu.