And here we go……my first blog post, so bear with me!
I wanted to start a blog to give hints, tips, advice and even news and updates on what’s happening in the world of waste and recycling. Now for some of you this may be boring, and for that I apologise, but it’s something that I care very much about, ever since I noticed litter on the floor in my seaside home.
I never understood why people would want to make somewhere so pretty turn into something rather ugly by littering, even so that I decided to write my undergraduate dissertation on this particular issue. My interests grew through the course of my childhood in particular regarding recycling. I think at around 7 we had a work shop at my primary school where I first heard the slogan ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ and that was it, I was hooked.
Now working at the University my aim is to increase the recycling on campus as much as possible, for staff, students and visitors to find recycling options easily and quickly. Whether that’s by visiting our website to look at maps, looking around the campus for posters or even just using the recycling sections in our bins internally and externally.
Last year we achieved a 62% recycling rate, something that we are really proud of especially as we had a target of 60%. Even though that this may not seem a lot, the left over 38% goes to an Energy from Waste (EfW) facility where the waste is burned, energy is captured and then sent out on the national grid, that’s pretty nifty!
Part of the promotion for educating our staff, students and visitors involves me attending events on campus. Today I have been over to the Darwin Conference Suite for the Staff Induction Fair where I must say we had a good selection of freebies (and honestly I think other stands may have been jealous!), of course some little chocolate eggs (it is Easter after all!) which are always a winner, and other treats such as travel mugs, mouse mats, pens and pencils made out of recycled newspaper.
One of the most fun parts of my job is working with students around campus, yesterday I helped the Enactus Society in creating a small shelter out of plastic bottles. I roped my colleagues into giving me plastic bottles over the last few weeks to help create this shelter on the Plaza area of campus. After a few balancing issues (we had to use water filled bottles as weights in the beginning!) the shelter was completed using different plastic drinks bottles, juice cartons and milk bottles and once it turned dark the society had a mini rave, with the bottles creating shadows on the Architecture Crit Space….
I think that’s all for now, but I hope to add another blog post in the next few weeks.
Until then Happy Easter and have a look at some pictures of yesterdays creation on our recycling twitter account @UniKentRecycle