Tips for an Eco-Friendly Move

Trish Smith-Posted on 09, April 2008

Moving on and off campus after a stressful semester is never fun. The idea of lugging tons of boxes, spending hours cleaning your old dorm or apartment and driving miles away from school with a jam-packed car, only to do it all again next semester, is more than enough to make the average student cringe.

Not only is it not fun to move, but it’s also very harmful to the environment. You accumulate excess waste from throwing out old possessions and packing boxes, and you release carbon dioxide into the air making several trips in your car to get everything home.

If you practice living green there are several steps that you can take to make your moving experience less stressful and more eco-friendly.

Give to a Good Cause
College students acquire more stuff in their tiny living space than most average people do in a lifetime, and when it’s time to move it takes triple the effort just to get everything packed! Here are some green ways to lighten the load:

• Donate – You can donate any items that you don’t use to a thrift store such as Goodwill Industries or the Salvation Army, who will sell your items to raise money for good causes. You reduce your carbon footprint because many of these places pick up your items from your front door.

• Sell – You can sell your stuff online through such sites as eBay and Craigslist. By doing this you not only get some extra money, but you also get to reduce paper waste because everything is done online. You can also have a yard sale (if you live in a house), which also saves you from spending gas money and driving to a new location.

• Recycle - Don’t forget that many items you may want to throw away, including old notebooks, metal tins and computers, can be recycled.

Post-Consumer Packing
Cardboard boxes are the standard way to pack up your items. Even though they are recyclable, an even better way to reduce your paper waste is to use an eco-friendly recycled container.

The people at Earth Friendly Moving created the RecoPack, which is a series of stackable moving containers made from plastic containers that were salvaged from U.S. landfills. You can rent them for $1 a week, and the Earth Friendly team will drop them off and pick them up for you!

Get a Helping Hand
If you need help moving you can always hire a moving company. I don’t mean the kind of company that releases tons of greenhouse gases in the air with their huge tractor-trailer trucks, but an eco-friendly moving company. A company like Go Green Moving uses biofuel to power its trucks and earth-friendly moving pads made from recycled cotton.

A Green Clean is a Great Clean
Once everything is packed up and shipped out, you still have one more thing to do: you get to clean up the messy spills and dirty corners. The best way to do this is to use eco-friendly cleaning products that are made of all-natural and organic ingredients. These are safe to use because they don’t release any toxic fumes and won’t irritate your skin. Some great places to get these products are Heather’s Natural & Organic Cleaning Products and Simple Green.

Moving may not be a fun experience, but it can be a green experience that will help you reduce your carbon footprint and save the environment’s natural resources. It just takes a little time and effort!

About the Author:
Trish Smith is a copywriter for Green Student U, a blog-style site that introduces today’s students to a wide variety of global environmental issues by recognizing college campus green initiatives and personal success stories, as well as how the world is being shaped by environmental reform.