Move-out: Tips for a cleaner, greener, easier experience
Penn offices and community partners have options for off-campus pickups, on-campus donations, and additional curbside trash pickup days aimed at keeping the neighborhood clean and limiting what ends up in the landfill.
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Key Takeaways
Off-campus students living between 43rd, 40th, and Chestnut streets, and Baltimore Ave. can go to upenn.liverego.com/refer to schedule a pickup of unwanted items, which will be donated to the Philadelphia Furniture Bank, between May 16 and 31.
In May, curbside trash pickup in this area will happen every Monday and Wednesday, with additional bulk trash pickup on Friday.
All students can take unwanted items, which will be donated to Goodwill, to various sites on campus 9 a.m.- 8 p.m. until May 15. The Residential Services website has more information.
University of Pennsylvania offices and community partners are continuing concerted efforts to build a cleaner, greener move-out experience for students and adding a new initiative: free curbside pickup of gently used items for off-campus students.
How can off-campus students donate unwanted items?
Penn Sustainability has contracted with Rego, a data-driven junk removal platform based in University City, to provide pickups from May 16 to 31 for off-campus students who live between 43rd, 40th, and Chestnut streets, and Baltimore Avenue.
Students can visit upenn.liverego.com/refer to select which items they want picked up—such as beds, couches, dressers, tables, desks, electronics, clothing, and home decor—and select their preferred pickup date. Sustainability Director Nina Morris says the Philadelphia Furniture Bank, a nonprofit providing furniture to people exiting homelessness, will pick up items.
Rego is oriented around helping organizations track their waste management, and Morris says having this data will allow Penn Sustainability to understand for the first time what students are donating and if pickups are appropriately timed.
“We’re confident that students want to be good neighbors when moving out, but even with the best of intentions, it’s hard,” says Scott Filkin, a director in the Office of Social Equity & Community. “We want to make it as easy as possible for students to find what they need.”
This is the evolution of Penn’s efforts to keep trash out of local neighborhoods. Morris says a survey conducted in partnership with the Spruce Hill Community Association shaped the two goals for the off-campus move-out program: keeping the neighborhood as clean as possible and keeping donated items local. Filkin explains that this shifted from a small pilot with dumpsters two years ago to multiple pickup days last year to the online platform this year.
What about items that can’t be donated?
Students between 40th, 42nd, Chestnut, and Baltimore can leave items not suitable for donation—such as broken furniture—on the curb for pickup every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from May 9 to 30.
Wednesday is the regular trash pickup day in the vicinity, but the City of Philadelphia has also added Monday to its regular pickup schedule for the month of May. Penn is also providing curbside trash pickup on Fridays, which is only for bulk trash, not regular household trash.
Morris says that Penn has also partnered for the past three years with University City District, which checks different blocks for cleanliness and addresses trash hotspots. “It takes a village to keep a village clean, and UCD has played a crucial role in this process,” Filkin says.
Since 2008, Business Services has run PennMOVES, which collects items students won’t take with them, such as furniture, clothes, books, housewares, and nonperishable food. Items are donated to Goodwill, which partners with an e-waste recycler and accepts electronics, functional or not. More information, including lists of items that can and can’t be accepted, can be found on the Residential Services website.
Through May 15, on- and off-campus residents can donate items from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Hamilton Village, Lauder, The Quadrangle, Kings Court/English House, Hill, and Gutmann, while donations will be accepted at Gregory and Du Bois college houses through May 20. Large or unwieldy items should be taken to the Hamilton Village location.
Student volunteers who staff the donation locations earn a free housing extension until May 20. Shennell Tyndell, dining facilities and project manager, says Residential Services has more than 80 volunteers, and that tabling at GreenFest during Earth Week was valuable in both recruiting volunteers and educating off-campus students about donation options.
Tyndell says Business Services also partners with the Netter Center for Community Partnerships to donate items to scholarship winners. Residential Services also partners throughout the year with Philadelphia Furniture Bank, Chicago Furniture Bank, and Philabundance.
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