Trash2Treasure members hauled overflowing suitcases to the fourth floor of Ell Hall Thursday night for the club’s first annual clothing exchange.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” played through speakers as the club set up shop for prospective clothing swappers. Participants freely roamed around the tables in search of new items. In exchange for bringing at least two of their own items, participants could take new clothes.

“Normally, all we do is the big winter clothing drive and the big spring clothing drive,” Merkle-Raymond said. “We’re trying to do smaller events throughout the semester in order to not have as large collections then and also try to minimize waste now. If some people wait all the way until then, they might be throwing things out in the middle of that.”

Club members separated the room into different clothing sections, each with a collection of vibrantly colored tops, skirts and more. One person after another slowly filed into room 408 to survey possibilities. Some brought a couple articles of clothing, while others brought bags full for donation.

Vice President Alia Newman-Boulle, a third-year behavioral neuroscience major, emphasized that events like the clothing swap can highlight the increasing waste at Northeastern.

“In the scope of Northeastern, the amount of clothing that has gone to landfills in recent years has been exponentially higher than it was like 10 years ago,” Newman-Boulle said. “Especially since I think a lot of people at Northeastern are very fashion-forward, I think it helps bring attention to how much clothing gets discarded and if there’s ways to recycle and reuse it.”

Merkle-Raymond said sustainability within Northeastern is especially important given the dynamics of campus, with students often transitioning from study abroad or co-op.

“Because people do so much at Northeastern, we have so much waste,” Merkle-Raymond said. “People continue to leave, and just having the ability to reduce that amount of waste as people leave, or have it pass it onto other people at Northeastern, is at least better than throwing those things away.”

Third-year theatre major Emma Hunt, who heard about the event through Facebook, scavenged through the piles of clothes in search of summer wear. She also contributed to the exchange by bringing eight pieces she no longer needed.

“I’m moving off campus hopefully this summer. I just realized I have so much stuff, more stuff than I need, and I can’t bring it all with me when I go off campus,” Hunt said.

Club members encouraged people to take whatever they liked and advertised that all leftover clothing would be donated.

“We’ve had clothing swaps just between friend groups in the past, so I think it’s easy when you make it into a broader audience and have other people get to enjoy it,” Merkle-Raymond said. “There’s so many things people clearly have to get rid of, so I don’t see why we wouldn’t try it.”