Fifty students at University of Oregon are the proud new owners of old mini fridges thanks to a pilot program run by the university.
Amidst the hustle and bustle of UO’s move-in day on Sept. 25, students and parents might have noticed an army of miniature fridges gathered on the Erb Memorial Union lawn. Regardless of size, shape, color, brand or style, each fridge was being sold for $20. The new “Waddle You Need” program is a collaboration between UO’s Office of Sustainability, Student Sustainability Center and University Housing.
At the end of every year, students moving out of the dorms leave copious amounts of items behind. There are often large bins at the ground floor of the dorms, filled with things students don’t want to take with them. One of the most commonly abandoned items is mini fridges, many of which are perfectly usable.
“We have heard from students for years that they were curious if we could do something like this, sell used mini fridges to new students,” said UO Office of Sustainability Associate Director Sarah Stoeckl. “We’ve always sort of had a storage issue, but this time it just clicked into place.”
Dori Vaughan, right, with the University of Oregon’s Student Sustainability Center, shows off reusable mini fridges as part of the university’s new sustainable pilot program on Sept. 25, 2025, in Eugene, Oregon.
This year, instead of immediately going straight to UO Surplus, the Office of Sustainability stored the fridges, with the idea of selling them for cheap to students moving into the dorms.
As a pilot program, there was no advertisement of the sale, just word of mouth and flyers handed out to parents and students moving in. Stoeckl said the team opened up earlier than they planned after having a line of eager students waiting. After less than an hour, already a third of the refrigerators had been purchased and claimed.
“Clearly there’s a lot of enthusiasm for it,” Stoeckl said. “Seeing parents and kids shopping together and debating what the right options are and asking our student staff and volunteers, ‘I’m in this dorm, what do you think will be the best?’ So that’s actually been really sweet to see.”
Alongside the fridges, the Student Sustainability Center also offered dishware, utensils and water bottles for free to students. This is a normal service in the Reusable Office Supply Exchange, also know as the ROSE Room, but this year they took the items right out to the students.
“The mission really is not to make money off of these, it’s just simply to create more circularity on campus,” said Dori Vaughan, a junior at UO who works in the Student Sustainability Center. “A mini fridge is an investment and a luxury that maybe not every student has considered for themselves.”
Although many of the students who were picking up fridges were freshmen, some upperclassmen helping out with “Unpack the Quack” took advantage of the offerings.
Caden Ring, a sophomore at UO, moved into his new apartment this week with two roommates. As a bit of a chef, he worried the new tiny apartment fridge would be a barrier to his talents. With the $20 price tag at the Waddle You Need event, he decided to browse around and ended up selecting one of the smallest refrigerators, which he plans to store under his bed.
“Last year, when I was moving out of the dorms, a lot of people left their fridges because they didn’t need it,” Ring recalled. “Reusing is better for the environment and it’s more cost-friendly for a lot of college students where budgets might be tight.”
Sustainable, affordable and accessible
Refrigerant is one of the most potent everyday pollutants. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the most common refrigerant has a global warming potential that is 1,430 times that of CO2.
“Refrigerant is significantly more impactful on the atmosphere than even greenhouse gases,” said Vaughan, who is an environmental science major. “It’s obviously a necessary evil because people need refrigerators, but if we can get people to not buy new refrigerators, especially for more of a smaller thing, like living in the dorms, that’s going to have an impact on the planet.”
Fridge shoppers were also inspired by the sustainability aspect of the program.
Incoming freshman Pavan Bapat and his mom Rama Bapat were particularly impressed. Pavan said he found out about the fridge program just from looking out his new dorm window and they decided to check it out. The family, who traveled from Portland to move Pavan in, said they were on the fence about buying a fridge for his dorm, so this was the perfect opportunity.
“It’s just accessibility, I think,” Pavan said. “Knowing that there’s these options and they (UO) provide it.”
“It’s a win-win situation for everybody,” Rama said. “I wish they did this in every school, every neighborhood, in fact. Sustainability, that’s the biggest thing.”
Violet Wade, a senior at UO who works in the Student Sustainability Center, said sustainability is popular, but many don’t know where to start.
“Everyone wants to do what they can in a small way to contribute to solving the climate crisis,” Wade said. “It’s hard because sustainability is not always accessible, especially when you’re a young adult like us. By being out here and bringing this opportunity to students, it really helps inspire them to live their life more sustainably while they’re here on the University of Oregon campus.”
“It’s empowering to make sustainable decisions accessible for people,” Vaughan said.
Although the fledgling program isn’t permanent yet, Stoeckl said the early interest could get them to bring it back next year.
Miranda Cyr reports on education for The Register-Guard. You can contact her at mcyr@registerguard.com or find her on X @mirandabcyr.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: University of Oregon’s fridge resale program helps the environment
