Stress-free moving and staying sustainable

We know the end-of-year pack up can be a chaotic scramble. When you're exhausted from deadlines and ready for home, it's tempting to chuck everything you own into a bin bag, or worse, leave it behind for someone else to deal with. 

But with a little bit of planning, you can clear out your room in a way that's kind to the planet, easy on your stress-levels, helpful to your local community and won't result in unnecessary charges when you leave.

1. Start Early

Planning your move and packing early will help prevent heavy waste disposal. By giving yourself time to plan and organise, you'll be able to bin items more responsibly, which is both better for you and the environment. 

Note: Make sure when you are binning items, you're disposing of them correctly. If you're unsure what goes in which bin, you can ask reception to avoid putting everything in the general waste bin.

2. Declutter and Donate

This is an essential step to help reduce the move-out stress. Don't know where to start? Try the '3-box' method! Have one pile for keep, one for donate, and one for bin.

This can help you sort through your belongings and realise you actually don't need that t-shirt from high school you always said you would wear again, but haven't. We accept food and clothing donations, and there are lots of British Heart Foundation donation spots around campus. If you have items you'd like to sell, you can use apps like Vinted and Facebook Marketplace too. 

3. Packing

One sustainable tip whilst packing is to avoid using things like plastic bags and bubble wrap. Instead, you can use socks, a towel, and even a hoodie to wrap delicate items. This can stop unnecessary plastic waste and could actually save you some space whilst packing.

For transporting your belongings, you can use laundry bags, suitcases and cardboard boxes. Local pubs and supermarkets always have some on hand and are usually happy to donate them to students for the moving-out period. 

4. Clearing your fridge

If you have lots of leftover food in the fridge, why not host a dinner party for you and your flatmates/friends? Not only is this a fun evening (you could even do a theme), but it makes sure you aren't just binning food before you leave. It saves waste as well as giving you and your mates a night of closure to your time in halls. If you have tins, full bags of pasta, rice, sauce jars, tea/coffee, we take food donations as well as clothing.

We understand moving out can sometimes be stressful, but there are ways you can make it easier for not just yourself, but also the environment ♻️