In May of 2025, at the end of last academic year, Duke received a spotlight in the local Durham newspaper the INDY. This feature made its way to national recognition through a New York Times article within just a few weeks. The recognition: That Duke students regularly leave behind large amounts of still useful goods as trash upon campus move-out every year. As Lena Geller details in her INDY article, the problem is not just that Duke students left barely touched clothes, appliances, and furniture in her downtown apartment trash room, but also that the abundant access to goods that is normalized in our culture leads one to casually consume, dispose, and desire in ways that actually feel gross.
We as Duke students have probably seen some of this ourselves. Come finals and move-out week, perfectly good objects are “thrown away” in dorm common areas with little care paid to the financial and environmental waste produced. If we’ve been around for a move-out season, we’ve probably seen and contributed to the like-new appliances, storage cubes, un-opened nonperishables, barely used camp gear (from tenting), and gently used high-end shoes and clothing that fill dumpsters outside of residence halls. This is the reality of move-out days at Duke. And unlike the story told about off-campus housing in the INDY article, if members of the public (including faculty and staff) want to re-purpose salvageable goods from on-campus housing—for example, by collecting like-new sleeping bags for people with housing insecurity—they cannot do so without officially trespassing in student dorms.
The culture of college students throwing out goods en masse at the end of the year is not specific to Duke. Nor is it a lost cause at Duke. Several initiatives already exist on campus to help change this culture. One initiative, Devils Care Donations, collected over 29 tons of donations brought to TROSA and Goodwill for resale in 2025. Another campaign, Devil’s Thrifthouse, a free, student-run thrift store offers a more sustainable approach to getting rid of no-longer-needed items throughout the year. Students have even set up tables in dorm lobbies to exchange or barter belongings.
As members of the Kenan Institute for Ethics (KIE) Living Learning Community, a group of us are interested in building a different sort of culture around consumption, waste, and moving out while benefiting both Duke students and our Durham neighbors. This is why we will be hosting the first Kenan Ethics LLC Really Really Free Market, open to Durham residents and the Duke community alike.
What is a Really Really Free Market?
A Really Really Free Market (RRFM) is exactly what it sounds like: a pop-up gathering where neighbors bring items to share, all for free. It is not a yard sale or place to drop off goods for a thrift store to resell. Rather, it is a local gift economy in miniature. Anyone can lay out clothes, books, furniture, or even food, and anyone can take what they want or what they need. In our society where the logic of making a profit often feels like it’s supposed to be the sole purpose of life, the thought of having an event where nothing is bought, sold, or even traded is really (really) unusual.
Traditionally, RRFMs are created by grassroots organizations or do-it-yourself efforts. They are participant-run, low logistics, and typically held at a public park or a common area at a recurring time (often monthly). In North Carolina, groups in Carrboro, Durham, Raleigh and beyond have run RRFMs for years, each adapting the same basic structure to local needs.
When visiting these local RRFMs for research, we saw there was no stigma attached to the exchanges taking place. All attendees were contributing equally to the event by virtue of being there. The categories of seller and buyer didn’t make sense. Even the categories of giver and receiver broke down, since people participated as both. The interactions we witnessed seemed to have the potential to build trust, empathy, and belonging between members of a community who might not otherwise cross paths. With a band, food, and crafts, it also was fun.
When thinking about move-out and the general cultures of consumption and disposability that are normal on campus (and beyond), we decided we wanted to try out a RRFM and the ethos of mutual aid at its core. RRFMs foreground the values of generosity and connection over profit, and sustainability and awareness over waste and ease. A RRFM offers a living example of how people can meet and be reconstituted as a community through the act of questioning the normalized practices we live within. As the Kenan Ethics Living Learning Community, we want to experiment with that promise. To participate is an incremental act of creative reimagining toward another way of living.
We’re sensitive to the fact, as Duke students, that move-out is a stressful time of year. To Duke students and parents, we invite you: Rather than leaving our still-good goods behind in trash bins, in donations bins, or in common areas (inevitably for someone else—invisibly to us—to have to take care of), might it be nicer to offer our goods intentionally to another person? For free? Might it be even nicer to see the material items we accumulate around ourselves bring joy to another person’s day? And might it be even cooler to do so, even if just for a half hour, while enjoying some Locopops (thanks KIE!) and a student mariachi band?
By hosting a RRFM we hope to make it just a little bit easier to shift from a transaction-based way of relating to goods and people, to a relationship-based ethos.
Please join us at the East Duke Building lawn (on East Campus, 1304 Campus Drive) on Sunday, April 26th from 1-3pm. Bring what you have, take what you want. Everything and everyone is welcome.
Romit Chunduri, Abby Davis, Raahim Hashmi, Alexandra Himmel, Victoria Pulliam, Rohil Watwe, and faculty director Shannan Hayes are members of the Kenan Institute for Ethics Living Learning Community, a residential community for students interested in living ethically in contemporary society.
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