USC Sustainability Diverts 156 Tons from Landfills

The Organization

USC's Office of Sustainability leads the university's push toward its Assignment: Earth goal of Zero Waste by 2028. The office regularly partners with University Housing and Residential Education, Facilities Planning and Management (FPM), and Surplus Sales on campus-wide waste initiatives.

When move-out season arrived in May 2026, these teams saw a chance to rethink a process that historically sent large volumes of usable items straight to the landfill, and they turned to SignUpGenius to help organize the efforts.

👉 Learn more about the office's work at the USC Office of Sustainability website

Move-Out Meant More Than Boxes

USC's Assignment: Earth framework set a specific target behind the "Zero Waste by 2028" language in this pilot: divert 90% of the university's waste from landfills. That's a steep climb. When President Carol Folt first announced the goal in 2019, USC was only diverting about 20% of its waste from landfills and incineration.

Move-out season showed why closing that gap would take more than better bins in classroom buildings. Every spring, thousands of students clear out their dorm rooms in University Housing, and much of what they leave behind still has plenty of life left. Mattress toppers, lamps, kitchen appliances, and furniture routinely ended up in the trash because students had no easy way to donate or resell them before leaving campus.

The problem wasn't news to campus. A USC student had already founded EcoDorm in 2023 specifically to reduce move-out waste and get usable dorm items to students who couldn't afford them, arguing that housing departments were already paying to haul dumpsters full of still-usable items to landfill. Move-out happens in a short, packed window, and University Housing had no established system of its own to catch these items before they hit the waste stream.

Don't Dump, Donate!

The Office of Sustainability brought together University Housing, FPM, and Surplus Sales to launch the Campus Move-Out Waste Diversion Pilot, a nine-day donation program running May 6 to 14, 2026 across three residence halls in the USC Village. Students dropped reusable items into clearly marked donation bins in each hall's lobby. "Don't Dump, Donate!" signage went up throughout the halls and USC Village to point students toward the bins instead of the dumpster.

Volunteers staffed the collection points to help students sort donations correctly. Surplus Sales made rounds throughout each day to transport items to its warehouse for rehab and resale. FPM's waste team collected non-perishable food donations for local unhoused neighbors and tracked diversion data across the pilot.

Campus Move-Out Waste Diversion Volunteers

None of that runs without people at the bins, and SignUpGenius handled that piece end to end. The Office of Sustainability built a shift each day of the pilot, then sent the sign-up link to the organizations and individuals who regularly partner with the office, and pushed it further through social media to widen the volunteer pool. Volunteers picked whichever shift fit their own schedule instead of waiting to be assigned one, and SignUpGenius handled the confirmation emails, reminders, and shift details automatically. As a first-year pilot with no past program to model shift needs on, that self-serve setup let the office adjust staffing day to day without extra back and forth.

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156 Tons Later…

Over nine days, the pilot diverted 156.62 tons of material from landfill through food donations, recycling, reuse donations, and Surplus Sales collections, pushing USC's move-out waste diversion rate up 2.06% over 2025.

Donations ranged from predictable to surprising. Mattress toppers, headboards, fans, mirrors, and lamps made up most of what came in, but students also dropped off a surfboard, a snowboard, a leather beanbag chair, and multiple microwaves and other kitchen appliances. Students appreciated having a convenient alternative to tossing usable items, and volunteers stayed engaged throughout the collection period, in part because SignUpGenius made it simple to find a shift and show up prepared.

As USC's first move-out diversion pilot, the team had no past program to compare against, and building awareness during an already hectic move-out week was the main hurdle. Cross-departmental coordination let the team adjust messaging and staffing as the pilot went on. For future move-out seasons, the team plans to start student communication earlier, and the program is already expanding to more residence halls for spring 2027 move-out.

In Their Words

"This pilot demonstrates what's possible when campus partners work together toward a shared sustainability goal. By making it easy for students to donate usable items during move-out, we're reducing waste, supporting incoming students, and taking another meaningful step toward our Zero Waste by 2028 goal."

• Ellen Dux, Associate Director, USC Office of Sustainability