Why we need fresh thinking to help new students kit out their new home
The same thing happens every year. People buy loads of new stuff. Much of it doesn't get used. Too much of it then gets thrown away. There are better ways.
Some things are sometimes going to go to waste.
Even with the best intentions, it can happen.
But what I struggle to accept is when waste is built into business models. When we know, from experience, that a particular set of circumstances result in significant environmental impacts.
I'm thinking today about young people moving away from home and heading to university.
As that's what my son's doing next month.
He'll be in a shared flat, just like thousands of other freshers around the country.
And what happens? Parents around the country buy a load of stuff to help their son or daughter to set up home.
"We'll get you that too just in case".
And they turn up at the flat with their new set of pans from IKEA and try to find room in the cupboard alongside everyone else's set of new pans from IKEA.
And eventually they'll move out. In a bit of a hurry. With not much room in the car. And some of that stuff - much of which may not have been used that much - will get thrown away.
Just as with the annual furore about discarded tents at festivals (only a few days to wait for that one), I don't point the finger at young people. Or their parents, in this case.
I'm interested to know more about what the key stakeholders in this system are doing. The accommodation providers. The landlords. The universities.
This stuff happens every year. It creates a load of waste. It causes problems in local communities at the end of term as a load of reusable stuff gets piled up alongside bins in streets.
It doesn’t have to be this way. When I was at Zero Waste Leeds we supported efforts by the universities in Leeds to redistribute unwanted household items at the end of the academic year - primarily through running a number of "free shops" - giving stuff away to people in the local community. This is a great idea, with a real impact.
But I think more needs to be done. We can do better than this, and we have to do better than this.
For my part, I'm busy on WhatsApp and Facebook (shout out to this super-useful CRAP group - there are several in Leeds) trying to pick up stuff that other parents have got taking up space in their loft, now that their children have returned to the nest. Charity shops such as Revive Leeds (a social enterprise perfectly located at a couple of Leeds household waste sites) have loads of this stuff too, of course.
No doubt other parents are doing the same. But it shouldn't just be down to us. This is a systemic problem that needs systemic solutions.
Have you seen better solutions to this problem? I'd love to hear about them.