An Innovative Scheme is piloted in Bristol to Reduce Student Waste

A growing problem in student communities is how best to dispose of unwanted items at the end of the academic year. That once essential printer is now another box to cram into the car home and that bike that you bought dirt cheap from your friend is not going to fit in the roofbox whatever way you push it.
Recently in Bristol a scheme to encourage students to donate items for reuse to a local children’s charity has been very successful, diverting 1.2 tonnes of waste from landfill and raising £5,000 for CLIC Sargent. The scheme involved the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England, and resulted in a 50 per cent reduction in residents’ complaints about student waste.

Special bags where left at student houses in areas of the city with high concentrations of student properties, and these bags where filled with unwanted items and collected by the charity, in partnership with the local refuse collection company May Gurney.