Recycling@UCL

A chat with...

Hi again everyone!

Today is time for the second to last post on RE-cyling. I will go straight to the point.

Thursday afternoon I had a great chat with the Green UCL staff. Obviously, the topic of the day has been the recycling at UCL and related issued. First of all I wish to begin with an apology because, personally, it will not be easy to summarize one-hour chat in just a brief post. Anyway, the conversation touched upon several topics and I decided to list them as following.

1. UCL waste production and recycling ratio

The most updated data are referred to the 2012/2013 Green UCL annual report: 3.672 tonnes of waste produced (roughly 3 Big Ben full of waste) and a recycling ratio of 69%. Very interesting is what Tony Overbury (Green UCL Waste and Resources Sustainability Manager) said about the recycling ratio: “we are probably forecasting a decrease for this year because we are focusing more on the quality of the recycled material rather that the quantity […] we are working to give the recovery facilities better quality materials”.

2. What the way to recycle better material is

“The best way to improve the quality is to reduce the contamination that would make the recycled difficult or impossible to use”, Mr. Miles says. Moreover, he explained that food waste is the principal source of waste contamination as well as other materials that cannot be recycled as, for instance, polystyrene. Within this context lies the idea to install the new UCL recycling method: indeed, in August 2014, a large number of new 3-stream-bins (figure 1) were placed throughout UCL. This new system allows separating food waste and non-recyclable material from the waste that can be highly recycled (essentially dry and clean plastic, paper and glass).

Furthermore, Mr. Anton pointed out also the importance of having strong infrastructures, facilities of do separation of materials and being able to communicate in the simplest way possible: this is to provide people the right condition to “use” properly their rubbish.

Figure 1: one of the new UCL 3-stream-bin

3. Make people aware of the second-lives of waste

Surely, the most immediate thought refers to the fact that from recycled waste can be produced new materials which need less energy demand and allows a remarkable save in terms of virgin materials. Generalising this concept, we need to have clear that disposing properly our waste produces an effective economical gain. Speaking of which, Tony Overbury says “when you have to put something in the bin, what if that something is a 5 pounds note?” Finally, the conversation moved to the WARPit project, which consists in a website where university employees can sell unwanted furnishing rather that simply throw them away: in 2012/2013 WARPit allowed reusing 1.9 tonnes of materials, with a money saving of 31.000 pounds. Alex Green, Green UCL Stakeholder and Communication Coordinator, explained that there is also a student version called Junk in the Trunk, mainly aimed to that students that, at the end of their university path, return in their own country (thanks to this program 4 tonnes of materials have been reused in 2013).

4. Psychological work behind behaviour change

The last part of the chat went through the psychology behind the recycling/non-recycling approach of people. Understanding the behaviour and the psychological implication that run below a specific approach, could lead to an extremely important area of improvement.

Of course, the chat analyzed other aspects and involved quite a lot of other considerations and comments. I tried to summarize the key point in a reasonable and simple way. I wish to thanks Tony, Miles, Anton and Alex for their time and enthusiasm.

Finally, I decided to put here these two pictures (shot throughout the university) just to highlight the overall sustainable approach of UCL, focused not only on waste but also dedicated to energy and water save.

Considering again waste, the picture below is a further great example of the strong link between reusing, waste prevention and money: in every UCL cafe, it is possible to get 10p discount if using our own mug. Could you imagine how much waste could be potentially prevented??

Tomorrow there will be time for the final short post which will be dealing with the future work that would need to be done in RE-cycling.

See you tomorrow on RE-cycling!

Recycling@UCL

Green UCL

Hi everyone!
I am writing a new post because this morning I received an important email so, before carrying on with the most important discussion of this blog (“Recycling: yes or not?”), I decided to talk about the “Green UCL”. The subject of the email that I got is “Are you ready for the Christmas Switch Off?” and it clearly sounded like something to talk about.

Together with the “Green Champions” and the “Environmental Sustainability Team”, “Green UCL” works in order to create a more sustainable university, striving for a more and more green, clean and healthy world. Green UCL organizes frequent events and activities aimed to promote and make aware students (and people) about the sustainable issue.
The most important activity planned for December 2014 is exactly the “Christmas Switch Off” (figure 1), organized to save energy, hence carbon and money, during the Christmas holidays.



Figure 1: "The Christmas Switch Off" poster

The idea arises considering that, during the near winter break, lots of machines and devices will be left on. Therefore, the “Christmas Switch Off” represents an intuitive, simple but important tip aimed to prevent an unnecessary waste of energy. The same event was organized during the last Eastern Holidays and the result was awesome: the saved-energy would have been enough to make 2 million cups of tea! If you need a list with all the things that could and should be switched off have a look at the "checklist and resources" link.
There is also a sort of contest that runs together with the switch off event: anyone is invited to send photos while switching off lights, radiators, projectors or whatever and, for the most original one, there is a book voucher or a chocolate award.

Obviously, Green UCL also cares about the recycling within the university. On December 4th, for instance, the facebook page was updated with a post related to new UCL recycling signage and its meaning (figure 2).

  

Figure 2: facebook screenshot of Green UCL page

To get involved with Green UCL follow this link.
Twitter: @GreenUCL – facebook: facebook.com/greenucl

So, the next post will restart the “Recycling: yes or not?” discussion. Stay tuned to read about the incineration process and its links with the other disposal methods.

See you soon on RE-cycling!

Recycling@UCL: a quick newsflash

Miles Irving says...

This is (another) post that it wasn't meant to be done now. However, I believe that an interesting part of blogging can be also the unpredictability of writing sequences. I mean, sometimes we have to modify a sort of planned schedule depending of what's going on around. So, what did Mr Irving say? As promised in the introduction post of this blog, I will widely discuss the recycling facilities in our University but, in the last days, the Cartographic Illustrator of the Drawing Office (UCL - Department of Geography) sent two important emails over. The former (14/11/2014) looks more like as an indisputable call to follow the basic rules of recycling and of the good manners while the latter (19/11/2014) is a clear handbook about how to recycle our waste at UCL.
For the time being, considering that the subject of the second email is exactly what I will fully investigate through the "proper post" about recycling at UCL, I want to copy here the body of the first Miles' email as I found its content so appropriate as well as strictly related to this blog:

"Dear All,

I would like to remind everyone about the Food Waste Bins, these are either the “Orange" Section of the triple banks dotted around campus, or any bin with a “Red” bin bag usually located in Kitchen areas often in a brown plastic bin.

these bins are for uncooked or cooked food waste only

including
Fruit
Banana Skins
Tea Bags (but not Tea)
Coffee Grounds (but not coffee)
Sandwiches
Yoghurt
Fish
If you would put it in your composter at home, you can put in here 

Please do not put in...

Cardboard Coffee Cups
Unwanted mail (especially with your name on it) (if you don’t want it, stop it coming from source)
Full Yoghurt Pots
Sandwich wrappers
Liquids
Cellophane and dirty food trays
Plastic Bags and bottles 

There is also a battery bin located in Pearson & Bedford Way.
this too is full of all of the above waste, it is not nice having to pick out old banana skins and coffee cups from the batteries.

As your green champion I am always happy to discuss any aspect of recycling and I will send out a full breakdown of all of our recycling opportunities next week

Thanks

Miles"

I feel like helping Miles to spread his message.

Well, in the next days I am going to resume the discussion triggered from "Digging the topic - part 3"; taking into account pro and cons of each disposal methods, I will try to understand whether or not recycling is an important tool for society and environment.

See you soon on RE-cycling!