As part of the College’s ongoing sustainability remit, every aspect of service delivery is subject to scrutiny to help reduce the College’s carbon footprint, including the management and disposal of waste.
With eight dustbins emptied six days a week by two lorries – four with general waste and four with re-cycling materials – this amounted to 625 lorry movements a year. The College has now replaced these dustbins with two new waste compactors which only require general waste to be collected once a week and recycling or dry waste bi-weekly.
This change has had a massive impact on the number of waste disposal lorry movements required, reducing them by 76% to just 152 movements a year. By changing from daily collections of the waste bins to the use of compactors, we are saving around 16 Tonnes of CO2 annually, equivalent to eight return flights to New York! Moreover, nothing is sent to landfill and any waste that can’t be re-cycled goes to an incinerator that generates power.