College student starts business recycling dorm fridges

LEWISTON, Maine — A college student appalled at the dorm furnishings his roommates were leaving behind his freshman year has started a booming business recycling mini refrigerators.

Mitch Newlin, 22, of Brunswick, Maine, goes to Bates College, a private, liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine, about 35 miles north of Portland. He buys dorm refrigerators at the end of the school year and sells them to incoming students the next year.

The Portland Press Herald reported that his company, Re-Fridge, has branched out to 17 colleges in Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts and expects to collect more than $70,000 in revenues this year.

Now a junior majoring in economics, Newlin hires students at other colleges to pick up and deliver the refrigerators, capitalizing on the convenience to the customers.

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