SAN DIEGO — The University of San Diego's student-led EcoExit initiative diverted over 8.5 tons of reusable items from landfills during its second year in 2025–2026. The program, which encourages students to donate dorm items like rugs and lamps to campus donation pods instead of discarding them during move-out, more than doubled its impact from its first year, when it diverted 4.3 tons.

EcoExit was launched at the end of the 2024–2025 academic year by University of San Diego students in partnership with the university’s Changemaker Hub. In its second year, the number of storage pods increased from three to six, and donated items were stored over the summer for distribution during move-in weekend at a free thrift event called EcoShop. Bedding, textiles, and other items that did not fit in the pods were donated to a local veterans’ thrift store.

"I remember my freshman year, students were throwing out TVs and other perfectly good items into the dumpsters, and we still saw that even this semester," said Ali Taliaferro, a third-year communication major and co-founder of EcoExit. "The problem wasn’t just the waste that students were generating at the end of the move-out. At the end of the day, it’s students buying a lot of things that they don’t really need, and maybe only need for a semester, so we saw that as an opportunity to be able to store those items over the summer and then make them available to students who are moving in during the fall," Taliaferro added.

EcoShop gives first-generation and low-income students early access to donated items before the event opens to the broader student body. "EcoShop was so popular during its first year that all the donated items were claimed within 90 minutes," said Lilly Tebaldi, a second-year sociology major and co-founder of EcoExit. "There was this aha moment for students to be like, ‘Oh, shoot, I could donate to [EcoExit] and I can come back in the fall when I’m moving back in and get different resources for free,’" she said.

In its second year, EcoExit expanded outreach through social media content, digital fliers, classroom presentations, and emails to professors. Approximately 40 student volunteers assisted with logistics during move-out week. "This year, because we had more time, we really wanted to improve student engagement on campus. Lilly was sending hundreds of emails to professors asking, ‘Can we please present about EcoExit in your class?’ and Ali did a lot of work on posters and digital fliers. We wouldn’t have had nearly as much student engagement without those efforts," said Harper Murphy, a second-year psychology major and co-founder of EcoExit.

Donation piles often formed outside the pods by the time organizers reopened them each morning. "This year we actually have fewer dumpsters on campus and none of them were completely full," said Ali Taliaferro. In EcoExit's first year, two overflowing dumpsters cost the university roughly $3,000 each to replace.