Binless Office
Centralised Waste Collection
Compost the Compostables and recycle those crisp packets!
Results show that recycling levels have increased significantly - from negligible to >700% !
In addition, through centralised waste disposal, we estimate that 10,000 plastic bin liners will be saved every year.
The team, in collaboration with ISS Cleaning Contractors for UCC, conducted an audit of waste collection in the Boole Library. The results showed that:
We had over 167 small bins across the Library, each with a plastic bag, that cleaning staff had to empty daily and sometimes a number of times a day.
We were using over 3,500 plastic bags per month and each of these was typically only 15% -20% full.
Each bin had a high level of contamination, so our recycling rate was in the low 5% -10% range and effectively zero during semester. One of the biggest sources of contamination was liquid from unfinished coffee cups.
We held information sessions and training days for staff and students to help them in the correct use of these new facilities.
The Plastic Wave was created and built by artist and colleague, William Ruane, along with members of the Green Energy committee, using the bottles collected by cleaning staff over the course of about 8 days, early in 2018.
In support of the Sick of Plastic Campaign, run by Friends of the Earth, it helped to raise awareness of the ridiculous amount of single-use plastic we discard on a daily basis.
Up to 200 UCC students signed a Waste Reduction Bill to mark the national Sick of Plastic Day of Action on campus on 20 April.
Library staff teamed up with UCC Green Campus to organise the bill-signing event ahead of the ‘shop and drop’ Plastic Day of Action which happened on Saturday 21 April and we gave out free coffee and tea on the day to anyone with a travel mug.
The wave was dismantled in September and all plastic bottles were recycled.