SWAP Shop Coming to South Street

After two years of success on the main campus, the SWAP Shop is expanding to South Street in Shrewsbury. The grand opening of the new SWAP Shop is set for Thursday December 21 .  On that day, people are encouraged to stop by and donate unneeded but good quality office supplies, equipment or small furniture items that could be reused by others in the building.

The South Street SWAP Shop is located in SS-13E497. (See map.) Anyone who stops by on opening day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. will receive a Growing Green lanyard.

“We’ve been so happy with the success of the SWAP Shop on the main campus, it just made sense to expand,” said Suzanne Wood, sustainability and energy manager at UMass Chan. “What we really need to get the shop running at South Street is for everyone there to look around their departments and bring surplus items to the shop for reuse.”

SWAP stands for Surplus With A Purpose and is a program designed to divert material from the campus waste stream. The concept of facilitating the reuse of materials on campus through SWAP evolved in 2015 from the virtual world of the school’s Intranet to a brick-and-mortar shop, now located in room S3-209 of the main Medical School building

All UMass affiliated students, faculty and staff at South Street are encouraged to bring surplus office supplies, equipment, small furniture, or similar items that they can carry themselves to the SWAP Shop so others in the building can put the items to good use. Large pieces of furniture or major capital items are not accepted. Those items can still be repurposed, but should be handled through the university’s asset moving policy. Home goods are not accepted at the SWAP Shop.

The South Street SWAP Shop will be open during regular business/school hours and will operate on the honor system. After opening day, people can drop off items at their convenience. When taking an item from the shop, people are asked to make note of it in the log book.

To date in 2017 more than 2,500 pounds of materials valued at over $30,000 has been exchanged through the original SWAP Shop. That brings the total materials reused since the SWAP Shop’s establishment in October of 2015 to some 7,500 pounds valued at $82,500.

“It’s always an eclectic assortment, but some of the most popular items exchanged are office supplies, file organizers, binders, flex-folders, computer monitors, keyboards, ink and toner,” Wood said. “Basically, anything in useable condition from people’s offices, if they can carry it, we’ll take it; and chances are someone else can use it.”