Here at BU, we acknowledge that whatÌýwe purchase and the waste we produce can have significant environmental, social and economic impacts. To reduce these impacts, we are committed to taking a sustainable approach to our purchasing activities.Ìý

Everything has value, and the resources we class as ‘waste’ have value too. A net-zero world will limit waste of any kind and with material resources that means following circular economy principles and the waste hierarchy:Ìýre-think, reduce, reuse, recycle,Ìýin all we doÌýfrom how we buy things to how we dispose of them.Ìý

Our focus is on reducing the overall volume of waste produced per person. We are tracking against a goal ofÌýkeepingÌýour campus waste produced to well below 20kg/FTE/yrÌý(non-constructionÌýand non-residential). In 22-23 we were at 14.07kg/FTE/yr students and staff. We think this is the best way to track waste as our goal should be waste reduction and not just percentage recycled, as we can't recycle our way out of crisis, we need to stop producing waste in the first place.

Recent actions we are taking to reduce amount of waste produced include our work to reduce the sale of single use plastics:

1) by encouraging students to refill their water bottles through our status as a '' with City to Sea. We have 45 brightly coloured water refill points across campus.

2) our innovative 'Cup Exchange Scheme' which reduces disposable coffee cup sales by offering a cup you can return to swap for a clean one or a token for next time. Disposable cups incur a 30p surcharge.

3) implementing a 'No Disposable Cups Week'. We ban disposable coffee cups for one week to nudge our community to join the Cup Exchange Scheme, bring their own resuable cup, or drink-in. This initiativeÌý(run twice in 2024) led to 2,286 fewer disposable coffee cups being sold across ourÌýcampuses compared to 2023.

For construction waste we do target 95% of waste recycled which is a challenging target to encourage the maximum reuse and recycling in construction projects.Ìý

These actions have helped us to be ranked 1st in the worldÌýfor our contribution to SDG12: Responsible Consumption and ProductionÌýin the THE Impact Rankings 2024.

PleaseÌýemail the Sustainability Team ([email protected]) if you have any questions about our waste management.