The Penn State Trash to Treasure Sale:

Who Donates and Why?

Laura DininniDepartment of Agricultural and Extension Education

Penn State University

If you’re not part of the solution…

Last year during Move Out Penn State Students donated 80 tons of usable goods to the Trash to Treasure Stadium Sale

Another 110 tons went to a landfill.

Objectives of this study

•Understand why students do or do not donate goods

•Basis to evaluate current trash to treasure promotional campaigns

Study Design

Survey Population: University Park students living

on campus Convenience sample Data Collection

Dorms Dining Halls

The Data Set

44 completed surveys 21 females, 23 males 23 Freshmen 14 Sophomore 5 Junior 2 Senior

Results

Awareness and Donations

Less than half ( 20 of 44) were aware of the trash to treasure sale

Of those that were aware of the sale, over half (13) made donations to the sale

All of those who donated last year will do so again this year

Awareness and Donations The primary reason that people did not

donate to the sale was that they didn’t know about the sale (14 of 20)

Of those that were aware of the sale, most (14 of 20) found out about it through fliers in the dorms.

Others (4 of 20) heard about it through a class

Concern about Waste

Most individuals are either ‘rather concerned’ (22 of 44) or ‘very concerned’ (12 of 44) about the amount of waste generated at Move Out every year

Six were ‘concerned’, 2 were ‘sort of concerned’ and 2 were ‘not at all concerned’

Conclusions Most students are simply unaware

Most of those that are aware donate Recognize benefit to self and other

Past donors will donate again Easy

Conclusions Given that most are quite concerned

about waste generation and the primary reason for not donating was lack of awareness…

Promotional campaign could be more successful

Recommendations

Recommendations

An opportunity

Right group to address

Right way to address

We care

Win-Win-Win Situation

Environment Less waste for landfill

Individual Patrons get nice stuff cheap Students “Give it up for good”

Community Money spent goes to Centre County United

Way then back into the community

Thank you!

Questions?