Edinburgh University Free Shop saves unwanted items from the scrapheap

(orginally posted on local.stv.tv website)

The majority of an estimated 10 tonnes of discarded items from halls of residence will be stored over the summer and made available to students in September.

Free Shop organiser, Ben Miller, explains the project. He said: “Each student in university accommodation gets given a standard plastic bin bag and they can leave anything that they don’t want.

"We collect the stuff and then we sort it. Most students tend to leave a duvet and a pillow, some bedding, some clothes, books, stationary, coat hangers - all sorts of quite mundane objects, but things that students who then come in September will find really useful.”

There is no shortage of interesting contributions, as Ben says: “We get kitchen appliances that you’ve never heard of. We had a cupcake maker last weekend.”

Weird and wonderful things like doughnut makers, beer machines, iPods, football tables, surfboards, sledges, TV sets and treasures from designer clothes to fishing trousers and also a few articles unsuitable for print pass through the hands of the Free Shop’s dedicated volunteers every year.

“We have a big a event and it’s all just given away for free,” said Ben.

After five years, the project has grown into something of an institution. “About a thousand people queued for our one last year,” said Ben. “We opened at 12pm, people queued at 9am and it was gone by 3pm. And we’re talking about last year about seven tonnes.”

Not everything collected from the halls ends up at the Free Shop. Roomfuls of duvets and pillows in good condition go into local charity Fresh Start’s packs for homeless people settling into their first flats.

Lacking the resources for PAT testing, the Free Shop also sends all its electricals to Fresh Start, along with half of door donations (£500 in 2010 was split between Fresh Start and the student activism organisation People and Planet). Bedding in not so good condition is reused as insulation.

An Edinburgh Council Waste Action grant gave People and Planet the initial support needed to prove the scheme’s feasibility. With enthusiastic volunteers working to tight deadlines (halls are swiftly turned into Festival accommodation in June) and support from key members of Accommodation Services, the University agreed to cover costs to continue the project.

With this support in place, organisers plan to expand the initiative to postgraduate accommodation and to students not living in university residences.

It can be gruelling work, but Free Shop participant Justina Adomaviciute highlights the importance of the project.

She said: “Imagine how many universities there are in Edinburgh, how many universities there are in the UK and how many universities there are all over the world and that in most of the other universities this amount of stuff gets thrown away each year.”

“Overwhelming,” she admits, but the Free Shop is not alone. In the wider Edinburgh community, reuse and repair initiatives like Remade in Edinburgh and Tinker Tailor engage in similar outreach and help residents reduce waste to landfill.

Both Edinburgh Napier and Heriot Watt universities have expressed interest in the scheme and a number of similar programmes are already in place at universities across Scotland, the UK and internationally.

Students can look out for the Free Shop in Freshers’ Week and volunteers are always needed for June sorting as well as the September event.

For more information or to express your interest please email justina [at] teu [dot] org [dot] uk.