Recycling/waste management
Waste and recycling is one of the most visible areas in the Sustainability Agenda. It demonstrates our commitment to staff, students and visitors, and offers an opportunity for people to be easily involved in environmental improvement.
Responsible waste disposal
Did you know?: None of our main waste at Nottingham College goes to landfill.
To continue to reduce, reuse and recycle the waste we create at the college, we need your help too. Please make sure you’re making the most of the waste facilities across campus by reading the information below.
The college produces a variety of different waste streams through its business activities.
This waste, if not correctly disposed of, can cause harm to the environment.
To control the amount of waste produced and to ensure it is correctly disposed of, the college uses multiple different disposal methods.
- Maintain a waste stream database of all waste that leaves the College sites, this will be updated on an annual basis.
- Dispose of waste using registered waste contractors, keeping records of licences to prove compliance for carrying the waste and of the final destination of the waste.
- Keep records of all waste disposed of, ensuring that waste transfer notes are kept for a minimum of 3 years.
- Monitor the amount of waste created by the college on an annual basis and ensure that all waste is disposed of in conjunction with the waste hierarchy – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover, Dispose.
- Set targets to reduce the amount of waste that is created.
- Remove materials from waste streams which can viably be recycled. For example, consider alternative uses for materials which currently enter waste streams.
What happens to waste at Nottingham College?
Have you ever wondered what happens to the items you put in the recycling and general waste bins containers at Nottingham College? Well, wonder no more!
When you place your recyclable or non-recyclable waste item into the correct receptacle, you have already completed step 1 in the recycling process: separation at source.
We have two types of bins: Recycling and General waste to allow you to separate at source the items you are disposing. In the recycling: (paper products/plastics/aluminum); and one for regular, non-recyclable waste.
Nottingham College cleaning staff collect materials from containers at specific times throughout each day.
The waste is taken to the waste management area of each campus. There, the bags are separated in preparation for the next step in the recycling process.
Your non-recyclable waste goes into a large waste bin that gets picked up by a waste management company. It is taken to be incinerated.
Meanwhile, for recyclables, the bags filled with either paper products or plastics or aluminum go into dedicated rollaway containers that get picked up by a different waste management company. At a recycling plant, paper products (cardboard, news and office paper) are blended, baled and shipped out to mills to be reused. Metal and plastic material is broken down, shredded or melted for reuse or complete destruction.
You help the planet when you separate your recyclables from your non-recyclable waste. When you put your waste into the correct section of the containers, you are making a direct contribution to environmental sustainability in Nottingham. Recycling is everyone’s responsibility.
No waste at Nottingham College goes to landfill.
58.49 tonnes was recycled in 2020/21 across all our campuses.