“Every year has been better than the previous year, but this year we did an especially good job,” said Jacqui Bauer, Bloomington sustainability coordinator, said.
The Hoosier to Hoosier sale is a waste diversion program between Bloomington and IU. It focuses on intercepting reusable items from when students move out at the end of the school year, Bauer said.
“Some people don’t really realize that this is about sustainability,” Annabella Habegger, IU junior and intern for the IU Office of Sustainability, said. “People get caught up in all the stuff we’re selling, but we’re really also trying to help the landfills.”
Items sold prevented approximately 60 tons of waste from being sent to a landfill this year, Habegger said.
The saving of landfill waste also indirectly contributes to other forms of sustainability.
“The trash trucks only get up to about eight miles per gallon, and the landfill is something like 60 miles away,” Habegger said. “This eliminates some of the trips they have to take.”
The items sold range from furniture to clothing. Donations from students, as well as community members, are collected beginning in early May and throughout the summer.
“About three quarters of IU’s students live off-campus, so we want to make sure we can include them too,” Bauer said.
A new boutique area, where brand new items, especially those with brand names, were sold for 75 percent of their online used price, contributed to the success.
“These were a little more expensive than most things here, but it was still a deal for something that hadn’t been used and helped a lot with our sales,” Habegger said.
The sale also offered a shuttle service for the first time to allow on-campus students without other means of transportation to easily attend.
Volunteers run most of the Hoosier to Hoosier program’s operations. Compensation programs are also available, allowing nonprofit organizations to earn funds if they send large groups of volunteers, Bauer said.
“It’s a nice way to loop people in who might not otherwise know anything about what we do,” Bauer said. “It becomes a really great community effort.”
