Jay collects and redistributes surplus items at the University. At the moment, this mostly means furniture, but as his inventory grows, he will eventually be responsible for other equipment and materials.
“My day starts pretty early. After I get the kids ready for school, I head over to the warehouse and fire up my laptop. I check my spreadsheet to see if there are any deliveries for the day and then I check to see if any new furniture has arrived.”
And there is a lot of material arriving at the warehouse. When Jay started in early September, the space was filling up quickly, but not much was leaving. So Jay revived the surplus newsletter for Facilities managers so that they could see what was available in the warehouse. This simple newsletter is helping to get the word out about the surplus items available to Faculties and services.
In 2011, which was the last time uOttawa ran a centralized surplus program, the University saved over $700,000 a year, a figure that includes savings from deferring the purchase of new furniture and reducing waste management and recycling costs.
But there were also other savings that were not calculated, such as the value of items donated to charities and NGOs, and the time saved by not having furniture delivered from abroad, which meant getting furniture in days rather than weeks.
Since September 2022, uOttawa has repurposed its surplus furniture to create new lounge spaces, replace older furniture in offices, and even equip a classroom.
Jay imagines a day when he will be able to offer special deals to employees and students by hosting garage sales and community giveaways for furniture that is no longer appropriate for use on campus. The program is not quite there yet, but every day, more and more material is being reused on campus. The goal is to reuse $500,000 worth of materials by the end of Jay’s first year on the job, and to soon bring that number up to $1M a year.
Until then, Jay keeps steadily building the inventory and showing people some of the great items available in the surplus warehouse. If you’d like to take a look at some of them, contact your Facilities manager for more information.
