Students moving into their campus residences this fall prioritized sustainability by shopping for gently used household items while saving money and reducing their environmental footprint.
MarKept, Marquette’s campus reuse store, sold more than 2,050 items from Aug. 19-28 with 350 transactions from international, first generation and incoming students over the eight-day event.
Sarah Knott, sustainability specialist at the Arrupe Center for Community Service and Social Responsibility, managed the sales from the campus program whose mission is to provide students access to a closed circle economy committed to reducing excess waste.
“Not only did we help reduce our ecological footprint on campus, but we also reaped the societal benefits of providing affordable resources to start the school year off right,” Knott says.
The most popular items sold were mini fridges, microwaves, fans, vacuums and rolling storage carts. Other in-demand essentials included textbooks, kitchenware, appliances and carpeting. Knott says that more than half the items sold at MarKept were donated.
MarKept by the numbers:
- 100 pickups of donations from residence halls with Campus Sustainability volunteers and assistance from Coakley Brothers
- 200 volunteer hours from collection, sorting, staging and sales
- 3,453 items donated from university apartments and residence halls
- 12,500 estimated pounds of items diverted from the landfill, estimated 6.25 tons
- 4,307 cubic feet, equivalent to saving eight 20-yard dumpsters
- 3.13 tons of CO2 emissions saved
- 2,052 items sold
- 350 transactions with international, first-generation and incoming students over eight days
More than 10,000 pounds of gently used household items, furniture, kitchenware, appliances and school supplies were donated through MarKept during spring move-out, keeping usable items out of landfills and helping prepare for another year of supporting students.
Here’s gallery of all the items that were available to students at MarKept:
