Piles of trash, some 5 feet high, littered neighborhoods around the University of Minnesota last fall. The piles were so big — and neighbors so exasperated — that they made the news.
"Dinkytown or Stinkytown?" one headline read.
Not this semester, some officials hope.
A new plan, run by the university's ReUse Program and others, will target move-out messes this May. A day before city garbage comes by, Salvation Army will do its own grab. Then, the university will collect reusable items in a free store for students to peruse in both spring and fall.
It's called "Pack and Give Back."
The goal is to keep furniture, appliances, clothing and other things out of the garbage and "put them back into the hands of other students," said Stacey White, supervisor of the ReUse Program.
This spring's effort will focus on Marcy-Holmes and Southeast Como, White said, but could later expand to other areas.
But one neighborhood leader wonders why groups are building a move-out program from scratch when the Southeast Como Improvement Association already established one that worked.
Starting in spring 2010, the association held four events called Move-In/Move-Out, collecting more than 26,000 pounds of reusable goods.
