Please find below details of the facilities that currently exist for recycling and waste disposal on the St Mary's campus.
Bins within buildings around the campus
There are bins to deposit both recycling and waste located in classrooms and buildings around the campus. These bins are individually identifiable by colour and/or branding as for either Recycling or General Waste. The content is collected on a regular basis by the Housekeeping Team. Please take care to place waste in the correct bin.
You can familiarise yourself with which items are suitable for which bin in the quick guide or itemised list below.
External litter bins
External litter bins do not provide separate recycling capacity and recyclables should be placed in internal recycling bins or the larger external commercial sized recycling bins where possible. Please do not fill external litter bins with large bags of rubbish from your office or residence and instead place them in the commercial size waste and recycling bins.
Large external mixed recycling and general waste bins
Any waste which is placed in one of the large general waste or mixed recycling commercial sized bins across the campus is collected by the Grounds Team Waste and Recycling Operative and emptied into one of two waste and recycling compactors for onward disposal. It is important that these bins, in the same way as desk side bins or other bins on campus, are used for the correct waste type they have been designated for. This will ensure that the introduction of the separate mixed recycling/general waste streams becomes successful and your recyclables reach their correct final destination for recovery uncontaminated by the wrong waste type.
Since March 2012, following the successful introduction of separate food and glass waste disposal facilities in mid-2010, the contents of the general waste compactor have been delivered to a materials recovery facility that will sort and pick some waste types for recycling. The bulk of the content is then shredded to make floc (a form of refuse-derived fuel). Floc is used in specially licensed facilities to generate energy from waste. Whilst a positive step away from sending waste to landfill this is not a substitute for reducing waste or increasing recycling rates and effective use of the recycling facilities is important.
A successful dual waste stream system will see a significant increase in recycling of waste generated on campus through a mixed recycling materials recovery facility. It has therefore become even more important that the waste streams and their various containers/bins are used in the correct manner. Large food quantities should be disposed of into the food recycling bins at the refectory and not into the mixed recycling bins and preferably not into the general waste bins. Equally the food waste bins and glass recycling bins should not be contaminated with general waste or recyclables of other types. The general waste stream facility can cope with an amount of left over snack items, but if a catered party, function or event is being organised suitable food waste containers should be requested from the Maintenance helpdesk or Catering Services.
A suitable guide to discarding food and food packaging is to ask yourself whether when throwing it away if it is messy and likely to considerably contaminate a notable quantity of recyclable materials in the same bin. If so, then you should place both the food waste and its packaging in the general waste bin where a food waste bin is not available.
If everyone does their part in using the waste and recycling facilities appropriately the proportion of University waste recycled can grow significantly. Additionally the already positive step of having redirected general waste from landfill to refuse derived fuel can also be improved further by reducing the volume of general waste too.
As always anything you can do to increase the waste items disposed of through one of the recycling facilities listed on this page will help contribute to sustainability and reduce the cost of waste disposal to St Mary's.
Remember - please do not use the wrong bin or put non recyclable items in with recycling as this can often lead to contamination of the contents with the result that the load is rejected by the materials recovery facility.
Cardboard
There is a cardboard baling machine located on-campus that helps to reduce waste and meet our legal requirements to pre-sort a percentage of our waste stream. Its primary use is to bale packaging from the Refectory and the contents of the cardboard bins located elsewhere on site.
Should any department be expecting a goods delivery that will generate considerable amounts of packaging, the Grounds team will be pleased to provide an 1100 litre bin solely for cardboard which they will then collect for baling. (The baler may only be operated by trained staff).
Regrettably we are unable to offer a bin provision service for small quantities of cardboard and would ask staff to ensure that they locate their nearest cardboard recycling bin to dispose of their cardboard waste to ensure the most effective disposal or alternatively a mixed recycling bin.
To arrange for the provision of an 1100 litre container please contact the Estates & Campus Services Maintenance Helpdesk on extension 4036 or email fmhelp@stmarys.ac.uk.
Cardboard Recycling bins can be found in the following locations (click for map):
- Within the bin enclosure on the left just after entering site near Reception behind the wooden screen/fence
- Within the bin enclosure between J block and the drama costume portacabin, (close to the bar office).
- In the staff car park, (with the bins on the right of the access road behind the wooden screen/fence)
These bins are routinely emptied and baled by the Grounds staff. They are labelled CARDBOARD ONLY and are painted brown. Please do not deposit other waste or recyclables in them.
All types of cardboard will be accepted however this does not include drink cartons and Tetra-Paks which should be disposed of in the general waste stream. It will be necessary to flatten boxes before depositing them in bins as the lids open only partially to avoid filling with just a small volume of un-flattened boxes.
Paper
Three paper recycling bins are located in various locations across the campus (click for map). These are primarily for higher quality office type paper and should not be used for card, laminates, and glossy or heavily printed magazines and books which should instead be deposited into the mixed recycling bins. If you have a significant volume of paper waste and are unsure if it is suitable for the paper bins please contact the Maintenance Helpdesk for advice on extension 4036 or email fmhelp@stmarys.ac.uk.
Since the withdrawal of the paper banks by the local authority which were replaced by paper recycling bins it is no longer acceptable to deposit cardboard in the paper bins.
Please also help to reduce paper waste at source by not printing documents unnecessarily.
Kitchen Waste
Waste vegetable cooking oil is collected by a specialist contractor based locally in Twickenham who refine it to make ‘cleaned used vegetable oil fuel’ or refine and blend it further to make biofuel/biodiesel. More information is available on the contractors' web page; they also have a short video clip available here.
Food waste from the refectory food preparation area is separatley collected for disposal, as are food waste leftovers when plates are returned to the kitchens in the refectory. Food waste is collected and composted at an anaerobic digestion facility. Please try to avoid wasting food, or leaving food, recyclables, and other waste, cross contaminating each other when you return your plate, or dispose of your meal.
Green (Garden) Waste
Any garden waste resulting from routine grounds and gardens maintenance is shredded on site and where possible dispersed back to the area from which it originated as a mulch.
Printer Cartridges, Batteries, CDs/DVDs and Mobile Phones
Please see the Hazardous and WEEE waste pages.
IT Equipment and Electrical Waste
Please consult the Hazardous and WEEE waste pages for information on IT consumables and equipment recycling.