MoveOutATX

The Problem

Over 18,000 students live in West Campus, the neighborhood west of the University of Texas at Austin. Each July during move out, curbs and dumpsters fill with a significant amount of material. Many of these items could be reused, and the pattern causes headaches for students, parents, residents, property owners, and the City.

The Solution

MoveOutATX originated in fall 2017 as a pilot, when the City of Austin led an 8-month community-wide collaborative planning process to identify ways to capture reusable items when apartment leases end July 31 in West Campus.

The result was a partnership between community members, the City of Austin, Keep Austin Beautiful, the State of Texas Alliance for Recycling, and the UT Office of Sustainability for the 2018 pilot program called [Re]Move & [Re]Use. Three temporary drop-off stations were available in West Campus for students to bring gently used items to donate, and partner reuse organizations collected the material. The 2018 program not only helped keep 62 tons of usable material (the volume equivalent of nearly 22.5 school buses) out of the landfill, but provided over $150,000 in economic benefit to Austin.

In 2019, the program was renamed to MoveOutATX, and expanded to 10 temporary locations, diverting 92 tons of material from the landfill. The program was paused in 2020 due to COVID-19, and resumed in 2021. In 2022, MoveOutATX piloted a Free Furniture Market for Austinites to pick up furniture items at no-cost.

Goals

Encourage college students to reuse, resell, and donate unwanted material instead of throwing it “away”
Create a process that can be repeated, scaled, and sustained by the community
Move closer towards Austin's  Zero Waste goal
Help increase used material donations and provide economic development opportunities for local reuse organizations
Decrease clean-up costs for property managers and landlords
Reduce eyesores for tenants and community members, post-move-out
Minimize safety and health hazards during move-out