A total of 24.6 tonnes of clothes, food, furniture and other goods was given to charities in the last academic year, a 15.9 percent increase on the year before.
The vast majority of these items – 24.4 tonnes – were donated to the British Heart Foundation in the form of clothes, furniture and some electrical items like hairdryers and mobile phones. June was the biggest month for donations, when 5.7 tonnes were donated by departing students.
The rest of the overall total was given as food donation to the FareShare food waste charity, with the majority donated by students, although University staff have provided goods too.
In addition to this, 31.4 tonnes of furniture was saved from being scrapped by the following the Warp It re-use scheme during the 2016-17 academic year. This was a massive 258% increase on the previous year and underlines the University’s commitment to reusing goods whenever possible.
Since introduced at the start of 2016 the Warp-It scheme has led to over 40 tonnes of furniture being reused around the University.
These successes form just one strand of the University’s ongoing recycling and environmental efforts. A recent sustainability report demonstrated that carbon emissions have been reduced by 14% since 2005, while water waste has fallen 15% in the last 12 months.
Furthermore, a huge 2,315 tonnes of waste was disposed of by controlled environmental means in the last academic year.