By Florence Hale (Waste and Recycling Manager) and Stav Friedman (Sustainability Engagement and Project Support Officer)
Ahead of Global Recycling Day on Wednesday 18 March, let’s break down what recycling is and how it even works. The Sustainability Hub and Property Team have put together our top tips (and some fun facts) so everyone can be a recycling pro!
Recycling can be defined as breaking down waste material to make a new product.
For example, breaking down paper to make cardboard, breaking down glass to make insulation, breaking down plastic to make garden furniture. To conserve resources and protect the environment we must recycle more, but recycling alone will not save the planet. We must also generate far less waste to begin with. So how do we recycle more and waste less? To answer these questions, we must first understand what happens to our recycling.
When a lorry of recycling arrives at a recycling facility, it tips its whole load onto the floor where it is visually inspected. If it looks like more than 15-20% of the material is non-recyclable, the whole twenty tonne load is redirected to incineration. This is because there is a limit to how much contamination the machinery in the facility can remove in the time it has available. Although, in that 20 tons, Imperial’s contribution will be a fraction of the load, the more contaminated our recycling, the more likely the load is to be rejected. As individuals and as an organisation, we can do our bit to increase the likelihood that our waste materials will go on to have another life by putting things in the right bin.
Some common contaminants in our recycling include paper hand towels, coffee cups, takeaway boxes and plastic wrappers.
These should go into general waste instead. If you are unsure if something can be recycled, remember the saying, “if in doubt, keep it out” of the recycling bin.
In this way, segregating our waste correctly can help to lessen the impacts of our discarded materials, but the only way to know for sure that we’re not contributing to the problems caused by our linear economy is to generate less waste in the first place. Fortunately, this is something we have much more control over than the fate of our recycling!
The best way to generate less waste is through reuse. The more times something is used, the better for the planet. You can do your bit by bringing reusables with you to campus so that you do not have to buy food and drinks in single-use packaging. As an organisation, we want to make reusing as easy and rewarding as possible, which is why we invested in new and improved water fountains for refilling bottles, and why we are currently trialling a reusable coffee cup system in the Senior Common Room.
We are also moving away from ‘back-of-house’ single-use items like paper hand towels and plastic bin liners by installing air dryers and by removing excess bins, respectively.
What can you do?
- Make sure your waste is segregated properly: food waste and tea bags in food bins; plastic bottles/pot/tubs, cardboard/paper, glass and tins/cans in recycling bins; and everything else goes into the general waste bin.
- Bring your reusables: cups, cutlery and lunch containers to minimise your single-use items.
- Help us remove excess bins! Is there a surplus of bins in your office? Are there many rubbish bins just metres apart? Reach out to the Waste & Recycling Manager who can help ensure there’s an appropriate number of bins and reduce the number of bin bags changed every day.
- Give the reusable cup scheme at the Roastery Cafe at South Kensington a try!