Ghent University’s Swap Shop ensures that materials such as cooking pots, cutlery, cleaning products and household appliances left by departing exchange students are given a second (and third and fourth) life by incoming exchange students. This also reduces the money new students have to lay out. The Swap Shop was the result of efforts by a student who started working at Ghent University’s The Green Office as part of the Making Tomorrow project.
A swap event is organised twice a year, where new students can choose free material. Not only has the initiative been highly successful, exchange students take the concept with them to their home universities, as a result of which the Swap Shop also helps raise awareness across a larger area. The management of the Swap Shop was transferred to the student digs’ associations. Clothes and duvets are kept apart for hygienic reasons, so the Green Office is working on a sound, financially profitable solution within the urban context for these.
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