A sustainable stationery management system: The Garage Sale planning process

From paper to different types of paint and instruments, the average design student generates a substantial amount of waste every year. Considering the majority of work requires use of stationery, it’s just most important to focus on recycling and reusing them.

It started with me cleaning my room right after my internship and before my seventh semester. I had so many stationery that I knew I won’t need for my last year. But they were expensive and I didn’t want to throw them. I thought of giving it away to my juniors.

Problem

The problem was I didn’t know whom to give them to. Yes, I know a lot of juniors who would have taken them. But what about other students who had things that they didn’t need any more. I was curious to know what my seniors did to their stationery when they left college.

Solution

I created a survey after talking to few of my seniors to enquire about the same to understand their problems. I tagged it to all the social media handles of NIFT centers. Following are the questions that were included in the survey:

1. What did you do with the stationery/objects when you left college?

• Took home with me
• Left in PG/flat as I couldn’t carry them all the way to home
• Left in PG/flat as I didn’t need them anymore
• Gave away to a junior
• Wanted to give away but didn’t know whom to give
• Other: _____________

2. What all stationery/objects was left behind when you left college?

Responses: Thermocol, Notebooks, Learning diaries, Geometry stationary, Decorative things, T-scale, Drawing board, Cutting board, Soft pastel, Leather, Muslin, Drawing book, Drafting tools, Sheets, Yarns, Paints, Magazines, Scales, Drafter, Fabrics, Hip curve, L-scale, Paint boxes, Yarn, Study table, Colors papers, Swatches, etc.

3. According to you, how can giving them away help you?

4. Would you have taken these items if your seniors were giving them away?

Analysis

• 45% of the respondents wanted to give it away but didn’t know whom to give.
• 73.7% of the respondents think they can save a lot of stationer by passing it on to their juniors.
• 63.2% of the respondents say that they would have bought the stationery if their seniors were selling them at lower prices.

Next step

The same form directed students studying in NIFT to two additional questions.

1. What all stationery/objects are waste for you that you are willing to give away? Please mention.
2. Do u need anything that you think others might be willing to sell?

By the end of the day I had a list of some 40 people who were either selling something or needed something. I couldn’t simply distribute the list to everyone. So, I started mailing the respondents, contacts of people whom they can get these things from. But it was taking a lot of time for me to do that so I started meeting and connecting them during the lunch breaks or after college. This way I was interacting with them and they were also getting to know me.

Problem

This was very time taking. Some turned up when I used to call them. Others didn’t. Maybe they were afraid. Or they just didn’t give it that importance that I expected them to.

Solution

Our director, Susan Thomas got to know about my survey. She loved the idea and wanted to make it official. I discussed with her the problems I was facing in connecting the sellers and buyers. She suggested that we can have a pool and call it “Garage Sale” where students can sell their used/unused stationery to people who needed them.

Without delay, I designed the posters and the very next day they were put up in the college campus.

In three days I had 120 registrations. That was a good number when your college is known to take limited number (33 in each department in one batch). Haha! It was 11th August already. There were still few points to be addressed.

Problem

• Few graduates had a lot of stationery that they were willing to sell during the garage sale. Some of them were simply willing to give them away. But we couldn’t let them inside the campus for the sale.
• Few faculties had stationery that they are willing to give away. But since they had class, they couldn’t bring it to the venue for sale.
• Some departments had their internship/cluster jury the next day. They couldn’t give time to the garage sale. These people had most amount of unwanted stationery.

Solution

Our student council head, Shubham came up with a solution. He arranged some amazing volunteers. Dileshaa is one of the volunteers who came up with the idea of collecting stuffs from people who couldn’t give time during the sale including graduates and faculties. We later assigned each of them to our volunteers who sold stuffs on behalf of them.

The volunteers

All the volunteers were from foundation program for obvious reasons.

• Raaghvi and Annanya designed the banner. They managed to arrange few cardboards and old newspapers. We took care that no stationery/money is wasted on it.
• Rajrupa volunteered as photographer and documented the entire event.
• Dileshaa, Simran, Saniya, Ishleen and Nithya took care of the stalls.

The Garage Sale

Stationery worth rupees 12500 was sold on the spot in like an hour.

Suggestions

We installed a write board during the sale and asked students to drop their suggestions on how we can save stationery. The quantity and quality of responses that we received was overwhelming. I have listed down some of them here:

• Teachers should ask students to purchase stationery in groups and NIFT should have it’s own stationery inside the campus that sells stationery at discounted rates. _Insha
• A barter system should be created if people are not willing to give things for free. _Twinkle Pahwa
• The stationery niftians buy is very expensive and some of them are used very less or not even used so it will be a good idea to give those to others to use. _Neha Yadav
• Buying things for MEWT is a waste. Whatever we buy are mostly one time use stuffs and are kept in the lab. But our juniors are asked to buy them again. _Shayoshri Sarkar
• Giving away stationery to juniors is a good idea. Juniors must talk to seniors to interact more and know who would help them in these type of circumstances. _Ankit Anand
• Creating a platform where we can submit our old or un-used stationary, so that you can further give it to juniors who need them can solve this problem to some extent. _Elizabeth Glory
• We should stop using CDs and printing on papers. Assignments can be emailed to the faculty. _Niteesh Kumar
• Giving away unused stationery to juniors can help reduce wastage. _Kunwar Vikram
• May be the stationary like scales were provided by college and would be returned back to the college after use. _Ritika Kumari
• It should be like a store inside college where used things should be kept for use and returned later. _Priyanka Kumari
• Keep a collection point with people in charge. Things can be arranged and when someone needs something they can just pick it up from there. But if you pick something up you need to drop at least one thing off as well. _Veda
• Install pick and drop stationery zone in the college. College can tie up with an NGO that needs stationery to teach children or it can be sent to government schools. _K Puneeth
• 3R’s – Reduce, Reuse & Recycle! Follow these three basic mantra for college assignments. It is the most creative way to do designing in entire college lifespan at no cost. _Varun Kumar Gupta
• Creating a sustainable environment from the grassroot level is important. Asking and sharing so consumption is reduced and handing over once no longer necessary so that it creates a cycle where buying is no longer necessary and helps students who are financially backward in reducing expenses. _Mishel Menezes
• The college should ask seniors to submit the instruments and stationary that are no more of use to them in the college. Later this can be given to the juniors. _Ritwik Kesarwani
• We buy a lot of stationery. Why not create something with waste which is easily recyclable and environment friendly. Like making something like a chota fun dairy with waste papers, making mood board inside a diary with delivery boxes cardboard and left over fabrics. I know this is not a relatable answer. But why not? _Nikitha

What our volunteers have to say…

• It was great coming together, putting up these stalls on behalf of our fellow seniors and interacting with so many other people and their needs & suggestions. I take back the importance of every stationary as well as money. Reusing items reduces wastage. I am so glad I volunteered. Thankyou to my fellow companions, Shubham and Sakshi, so approachable, you made being a fresher look so comfortable. It was a fun learning experience working with all of you. _Dileshaa
• The moment we heard of the word garage sale we were very curious to know what’s gonna happen , what will be there, how it’s gonna be managed. But when everything started it was fun. Environment was enthusiastic songs were being played. Our strategy of playing songs to attract student’s attention worked out well. _Ghosh
• I cannot praise enough the support and help shown by you both Shubham and Sakshi. You both went beyond the call of duty! I thank you both for giving such an amazing opportunity to freshers. The best part was we took away the left over staionary for free😂. _Simran
• Volunteering during the sale provided me an opportunity to make a difference as well as developing my soft skills. It was nice to work with people having similar interests. Special thanks to Shubham and Sakshi. _
• Volunteering as a photographer was an amazing experience. Capturing various moments and realizing the importance of reusing stationery was an eye opener. I learnt the importance of organisation and team work. Thankful to NIFT and my seniors for giving this oppurtunity. This surely inspired everyone and your juniors in particular. _Rajrupa
• It was wonderful working with my seniors and my fellow mates! It had really helped people to see a change ! And im happy that im volunteering for a good cause ! It was really a heartwarming experience ! I really thank shubham sir and Sakshi mam for the opportunity ! I will give my best in the upcoming events! Thanks! _Nithya
• Volunteering made me more comfortable with the surroundings and the people around, boosting up my confidence and special special thanks to Shubham and Sakshi for considering us capable enough of handling such an impromptu event. It was great working with you guys, looking forward to many more events to come. _Raaghvi
• Who knew volunteering as a fresher could be so much fun. Being a part of an event like so filled me with joy and boosted up my confidence. Working with such sweet seniors and getting to interact with others was amazing… Man it has just been 15 days in college and I feel productive already. Looking forward to volunteering in more such events. _Ishleen
• This Garage Sale was a success only because of freshers. And under Sakshi’s guidance of-course, it was a massive hit. Volunteers worked religiously to make this event successful. It was the first ever Garage sale, and it worked out perfectly. I look forward to organizing more such events. Cheers! _Shubham Vijay (Student council head, NIFT Bengaluru)

What’s next?

We are moving from GARAGE to TRUNK.

After a great response from students, authorities decided to have such sales in the campus on more frequent basis. Efforts put by our volunteers brought us good number of participants. We are now organizing a “Trunk Sale” of clothes, footwear and accessories coming week. Date will be announced soon.

Sustainability is fundamentally a positive probe and a way to record and analyse positive and futuristic qualitative and quantitative human development. Learning how to reduce waste and recycle more is very beneficial to the environment. And when started from the root level, it can create huge impact in the society.

I am sharing the planning process of the Garage Sale to show you how easy it is to implement a solution sometimes. In this era when any news spreads like fire through social media, bringing any change has become really easy. The most difficult part is to take that first step. The things then automatically gets connected. In our case just think…

The Garage Sale was just one of the solutions. There are a lot more. If one college can save resources worth rupees 12,500 in an hour, how much resources can be saved by implementing similar strategies in 799 universities in India.

If you have any suggestions on how schools and colleges can save resources, please let us know. You can drop me a mail at sakshi.kumari.1@nift.ac.in or find me on Instagram at @sakshikumari204.