SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION NETWORK (SEEN)

During the launch of WasteNott, we decided to form a waste audit team to assess how much waste our university produces and manages every year. Braving the challenges of conducting an audit throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the team wrote about their findings and made some great recommendations. Let's have a quick look at their report!

Existing Waste Management Plan

The team found out that the university's waste is either composted, recycled or sent straight to the landfill. Food waste thrown only into the yellow bins at H Block and green waste from landscaping services will be composted. The university also outsources waste sorting to differentiate recyclable and non-recyclable waste. However, the team could not discover exactly how much waste is sorted as such. They also considered the issues of throwing waste in the wrong bin and the lack of designated bins throughout campus that will disrupt the entire system.

Audits

Carrying out audits allows the team to obtain measurable data about the university's waste and a clearer picture of issues mentioned in the previous section. The university may use the data to improve its waste management services and reduce waste overall. The team planned out three audits: audit-by-zone audit, compost audit, and electricity audit. Due to COVID-19-related restrictions, they only conducted the compost audit.

The compost audit took place at the university's composting site. Looking at the proportion of composted waste, there was more green waste (56%) than food waste (42%). This could stem from a low number of students on campus owing to travel restrictions at that time. Composting data before the pandemic showed that food waste greatly outnumbered green waste. The amount of food waste nearly doubled from 2017 to 2018. If food waste per person increased sharply in a year, it could be a major issue for the university to address.

The audit-by-zone audit would have used several campus buildings as zones where the team would examine, categorise and weigh the waste. This would have represented the typical waste generated in each zone. The audit could identify the need for recyclable and compostable waste bins if either waste was found in zones lacking these bins. This is important because the waste might end up in the landfill after the sorting process.

The electricity audit would have involved tracking electricity usage by recording electric metres based on zones like the audit-by-zone audit. The metre readings alone would not reveal how much an individual on campus wastes electricity. Therefore, they would also conduct surveys on individual electricity use.

Waste Indicators

The team identified three waste indicators for their successors to measure: Total Waste, Diversion Rate, and Waste per Capita. These indicators gauge the success of the university's waste management. They admitted that these indicators are centred around general, recyclable and compostable waste. However, indicators for utility and special waste are in the works.

1. Total Waste is self-explanatory and one of the team's goals is to keep it to a minimum.

2. Diversion Rate refers to the proportion of waste diverted away from landfills and it should be as high as possible.

3. Waste per Capita is based on how much waste someone in the university produces and like Total Waste, it should be minimised. This can determine whether Total Waste is increasing because of an increasing population or the average individual in Nottingham is becoming more wasteful.