Recycling and Waste Management at UEL
What is the Waste Hierarchy?
- An order of preference for dealing with waste, with the earlier steps the most sustainable.
- Key strategies for reducing the amount we send to landfill: reduce total waste output; encourage reuse of office equipment and furniture; increase recycling.
Where is our waste going?
The main bulk of UEL’s waste (e.g. refuse and recycling generated by the university’s offices and teaching spaces, catering areas and halls of residence) is divided into general waste and recycling.
Both are collected by Veolia.
Mixed recycling
- All the items you put in the designated orange bins and skips around campus.
- Our recycling goes to Rainham MRF (Materials Recovery Facility), where recyclable waste is sorted into its various types of material (plastics, paper, card, aluminium cans, etc). It can then be made into new goods, saving energy and virgin resources.
General waste
- Two destinations: energy from waste (EfW) (Greenwich), and landfill (Rainham).
- EfW means incinerating waste and using it as fuel for generating power. Following the Waste Hierarchy, this option is preferable to landfill. However, it is not a sustainable solution: burning waste produces greenhouse gases, and is not necessarily efficient fuel.
- UEL’s policy is to increase recycling and try to reduce the amount we waste as a whole.
What other waste do we generate?
Other items we collect and send for recycling include:
| Waste stream | Internal UEL process | Collected by | Recycled at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium white paper | Blue bins in offices | Paper Round | Aylesford Newsprint, Kent |
| Confidential paper | "Confidential" bags or bins in offices | PHS Datashred | Shredded on site, recycled at Crayford |
| Domestic WEEE* (e.g. fans, lamps, fridges) | Collected from staff 2-3 times a year | Veolia | Stewartby, Bedford |
| IT WEEE* (PCs, Printers) | Stored by IT Services | CDL | Warrington WEEE Facility |
| Batteries | Battery bins on campus | BatteryBack scheme | Barking |
| Ink and toner cartridges | Post Rooms | Reclaim-IT | Thatcham, Berks |
| Print Unit | eReco EMEA | Various |
*WEEE - Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
Contact
Got any ideas about how we could improve recycling at UEL?
Toby Jones, Waste Projects Officer
Email: t.x.jones@uel.ac.uk
Tel: 020 8223 2872 / 2187
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