KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — When students moved out of residence halls at the University of Tennessee in May 2025, discarded belongings filled 191 dumpsters in just one week.
Furniture, unopened food, clothing, electronics and other goods and household items were thrown away by the thousands, highlighting the scale of campus waste despite UT’s sustainability efforts and zero-waste goals, according to UT researcher and PhD candidate Chris Mayer.
A new initiative called “Dumpster Treasures: Reclaiming Waste through Arts-Based Research” is working to document that waste, recover usable items and transform discarded materials into art and research…