Sheffield Hallam University is highly committed to do its part towards addressing the climate emergency.
Our aim is to develop an ambitious whole-of-institution strategy for climate action – includes campus, teaching, research, civic, leadership & governance
We are committed to reducing waste volumes and increasing recycling rates across all our operations. We are a zero waste to landfill university. Any material that cannot be recycled locally is incinerated and returned to our city centre buildings as heat.
Within our Campus Management Climate Action Policy we have a made a commitment to "Continue to embed the waste hierarchy (prevent, reduce, reuse, recycle) across the estate through facilities and services whilst including the encouragement of sustainable behaviour and reducing embedded carbon emissions associated with the disposal of waste."
Our measures and targets
2018/19 Scope 3 Baseline
- 14,825 kg CO2e
- 706.5 tonnes produced (30% recycled/ recovered)
2030 Targets;
- To halve scope 3 emissions
- To have achieved full roll out of centralised recycling stations across the estate
The production and disposal of waste is a relatively small proportion of the University’s scope 3 footprint, however the disposal of approximately 460 tonnes of waste (2021/22) per year is a potentially significant local environmental impact as identified through the University’s ISO 14001 / 50001 systems.
The University has overachieved all waste targets in previous Environmental Plans and put in place many waste management procedures and controls including behaviour change campaigns, provision of segregated streams and diversion of all waste from landfill. It is felt that a move away from data driven targets and focus on achieving high level objectives would have a greater positive influence on the environmental impacts of waste management and any improvement in waste practices would have a positive impact on the Scope 3 emissions. In addition to applying procurement actions as outlined in the Campus Management Plan, which would reduce waste produced, long term waste targets are to achieve a 100% roll out of centralised recycling stations across campus by 2030, which should improve both segregation rates and waste produced, as well as reducing scope 3 emissions embedded within the waste management process.
Objectives
The success of these schemes will be measured in the data, but not driven by it. Annual targets will be set and reviewed to achieve these objectives, for 2023/24 waste objectives are:
- Continued data collection to be maintained as measure of success as roll out of recycling stations continues
- In depth data analysis (recycling rates and quantities) to be undertaken on buildings with the recycling stations already installed, measured success to be used to further the roll out of the waste stations
- Although a baseline scope 3 footprint has been developed in the Carbon Action Toolkit, this has been developed according to sector averages according to weights, by working with the University’s waste contractors and looking at the process a much more accurate footprint could be developed. The aim is to calculate average carbon figures per bin collection (or similar calculation to be discussed) and CO2e of disposal and consequently update the Carbon Management Monitoring Tool.
How to recycle at SHU
Recycling on campus is easy as we have one green bin for all of recyclable materials. The items that you can recycle in these bins are as follows:
- cardboard
- paper
- clean plastic bottles
- clean tins and cans
The University also has coffee cup recycling pod stations located in Chef Hallam Central, Atrium Level 5, The Granary and Adsetts Centre catering outlets where you can recycle single-use coffee cups.
Materials that are not listed above can be disposed of in our grey general waste bins to be incinerated for heat. You can learn more about the energy recovery facility and process here.
Recycling in Sheffield
Visit the Veolia website to find your nearest recycling bank site in Sheffield. For all your waste and recycling services please visit the Sheffield City Council website.
What happens to the University’s waste?
SHU has always strived to ‘Do The Right Thing’ with regards to our waste and has avoided sending waste to landfill for many years, you may be interested to find out what happens with our waste when it leaves us:
