Annie Wu ’23
Sept. 26, Vol. XXIX, Issue 1
When my roommates and I first entered Scripps, one of our first questions was, “what should each of us bring to our dorm?” We had discussed reaching out to graduate friends, looking online, waiting for back-to-school shopping deals— all in an attempt to find a constructive way to stock up for college. Then, we heard about Scripps Scrapps.
Scripps Scrapps is a campus-wide initiative in which salvageable items that students leave behind or donate are sold at the start of the fall semester to first-years and returners alike. We were excited by this concept of using and reusing items that need not be thrown away. Instead of discussing how we would split the price for expensive furniture and who would buy which item, our conversation transitioned into: “how about we invest in a mini fridge here?” and “there are enough hangers for all three of us!”
This year, there were two separate sales, one for first-years on Aug. 28 and another for returning students on Sept. 1. The majority of profit came from selling to first-years, but the appeal of the event held true for everyone.
According to Anne Shalamoff ’20, the most popular items sold include mini fridges, dorm decor (throw pillows, string lights, etc.), electronics (extension cords, table lamps, etc.), school supplies, and kitchen items. The least popular, however, were textbooks. Scripps Scrapps receives lots of books, including those from CORE. Fortunately, books that are not sold are donated to The Claremont Forum, a non-profit organization that serves Claremont and its neighboring cities through education programs, including the nationwide Prison Library Project that sends books to inmates nationwide. Besides books, the rest of the remaining items are donated to local organizations such as Crossroads and House of Ruth.
Scripps Scrapps is gaining more traction and has earned both respect and interest from administration, but this initiative still has a long way to go. Scripps Scrapps is currently seeking a Sustainability Coordinator, who would be a full-time employee tasked with promoting and creating sustainability projects at Scripps.
“It’s amazing to see all of the work my fellow Scrippsies have put into keeping this program afloat, but having administrative support and representation is so incredibly important,” said Shalamoff, an environmental analysis major who has been working for the initiative for two years now.
Along with having another Sustainability Coordinator to oversee Scripps Scrapps, this program could be expanded by receiving the funding for additional storage containers, as numbers of items requiring storage over the summer increase. They also hope to develop a system to become better informed of supply and demand in order to develop a more accurate sense of the appropriate number of students to hire on each shift, as well as how to price each item. They are currently working on establishing a Sustainability Coalition that allows the various environmental groups at Scripps to work together towards a common goal: reusing items and reducing waste. It may be years to come, but Scripps Scrapps has an ambitious goal to one day establish a year-round system for students to donate or trade items in usable condition between one another.
Overall, Scripps Scrapps is one of the major student-run environmental efforts happening on campus— and its future lies in the hands of our campus community. Scripps Scrapps’ vision is to create a distinguished culture of low waste and mindful consumption, one that we can all contribute towards. They may only be two years in, but this program has taken a huge step towards promoting sustainability in the long-run.
