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Green Your Campus Tip #1: Recycle Furniture
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By
Emily Torres
18 September 2008
Do you know the hottest color on campus? Green. Good thing too—protecting the environment is important and if every college kid did his or her part it would make an incredible difference. Think about it: there are millions of kids in college; if each of them changed to energy efficient light bulbs or never used a plastic bag… the world would be a happier (and much cleaner) place. And as we all know, recycling anything is good for the environment. It keeps our landfills smaller, and we make less new things (especially less new plastic things).
So here’s a way to green your college: recycled furniture. Doesn’t sound that exciting to you? Doesn’t sound glamorous? Ok, so maybe it’s not, but it will help the environment, help your fellow students, and you’ll be helping yourself. Not to mention how many new people you’ll meet and how much fun you’ll have.
There are a few things you can count on at any college:
1. each year new students arrive
2. each year students come back
3. each year students graduate and don’t come back
4. they all need furniture or have furniture they no longer need and don’t want to deal with
Talk about a built-in market. So now you have this hot-trend-that’s-not-going-away and a built-in market. And, as anyone who has started a business knows, these are good things.
Here are a few furniture recycling ideas. None of these ideas are perfect; they are just places for you to start.
• Dorm on Demand. Offer to come and get any used furniture anyone doesn’t want. Paint, decorate, sand, do whatever you need to do to make it look decent. Sell to arriving students next year. You can take orders to find specific items, you can paint puke green bedroom sets; in short—you can offer full-service complete customization. You can even arrange to have the furniture at your clients’ new home when they arrive each semester. You can charge a small pick-up/drop-off fee in addition to the price of the rehabbed furniture. Ask your school if they can donate some space where you can store the furniture (since everyone should be doing his or her part to help with global warming). Or, hit up a storage place—offer to pass out their flyers with every piece of furniture, or include them in any environmentally conscious press you might get.
• Furniture Forum. Set up an online marketplace to help your fellow students connect with people who need to get rid of stuff and people who need stuff. This doesn’t require any space or supplies. See if your school will sponsor this as one more way they can “green” the campus. Check your local thrift stores and ask if they will pay to advertise. Call Target, Pier One, Ikea—ask if they have a program to resell furniture people have returned. Then ask them to advertise that portion of their business with yours.
• Raise Money and Awareness. Sponsor “fire sales” in front of each dorm at the beginning and end of every semester. Sponsor “re-decorating” parties for your classmates. Invite neighboring schools to participate. Have furniture painting parties to raise money for local high schools to get new computers (and get some great press in the community—both on- and off-campus). This will raise awareness and raise money for whatever good cause you’re attracted to (hint: the environment is an awfully good cause).
Whatever you do, you’re going to need to market it. Get a used truck and paint it bright green then attach chairs or end tables or lamps to the sides (a là art car). Include coupons in your school newspaper. Stand outside Target in a Gumby costume expounding on the many benefits of used furniture. Have you been to a vintage store lately? They’re always packed and some have become downright expensive. People want to be different and you are providing them with unique, one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly furniture—it’s a perfect match.
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, some of these could be turned into pretty good business ideas. You may not make a fortune (or more than some extra drinking money) but you will meet a lot of new people to help you network, obtain mad furniture painting skills, help the environment, and impress prospective employers. Your dedication to making the world a better place will not be overlooked when applying for a job, and just may move you to the head of the class.
Emily Torres is a graduate of Life’s a Bitch Books.
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