Are you ready for Hippie Christmas?

MADISON, Wis (WMDX) – Hippie Christmas is upon us. The annual Madison tradition gets going in full this week, as leases for thousands of residents – many of them UW-Madison students – end in mid August.

The mass moveout means ottomans, futons, appliances, collectables, and other furnishings crowding sidewalks, as renters toss what’s now unwanted – or won’t fit in the car.

The Madison Streets Division has a more formal term for it: “moveout days.” And Streets is conducting extra collections near campus and student neighborhoods in the “designated move-out area” along the the isthmus.

City crews have been working extra since the start of August to empty trash and recycling carts carts. That’ll end on August 22.

The Streets Division has an information portal of additional information on donations, large-item collection, and more.

That page even has an interactive version of the long-running Recycleopedia, which will tell you how to recycle a specific item. .

Of course, some will still continue a decades-long tradition: treasure hunting, hoping for the next great find.

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