Our waste contractor has a waste facility in the UK that's able to sort and recover all recyclables from mixed office waste, with the exception of food. Materials that aren't recyclable go to a waste-to-energy plant so that all waste is safely disposed of. Recycling saves valuable materials from going to landfill awhile avoiding the extraction and use of virgin raw materials, saving energy and resources.
The University aims to recycle at least 70% of its waste (by weight) with none of it going to landfill. The Library exceeds 80% recycling on average but with your help, we could do even better in future! Most of our bins are dedicated to recycling dry paper, packaging, and empty cups and bottles.
Just one cup of unwanted coffee dropped into a bin can contaminate the entire binful, which all then has to go to landfill.
Please empty any leftover drink into one of the blue liquid waste bins, and drop any unwanted food and teabags into a black bin section before recycling your empty cups, lids, bottles and packaging.
If everyone followed these simple rules, we could recycle and compost 100% of our waste.
Recycling in the library
We can all help the university become climate positive by 2030 by recycling carefully. Recycling has to be kept clean and dry while leftover food for composting needs to be free of plastics, so sorting your rubbish into the right bins is important.
This video explains what goes in which bin only clean dry paper and card cans and bottles can be recycled. Food waste is composted put it in the dark green bin in the cafe area, mixed waste and anything contaminated with food goes in a black bin.
Recycling has to be kept dry and Bin bags are not always leak proof so please pour away any leftover drink into a blue bin before throwing away your cups cans and
bottles.
Finally green bins are for your recycling dry paper empty cans and empty plastic bottles only please. These green recycling bins may look like this or this so that's it separate bins for food recyclable bottles cans and dry paper liquids and other rubbish. Thank you for sorting your rubbish. Happy recycling.