Recycling - is it worth the effort?

Robinson is one of the best colleges in Cambridge for recycling. At the bottom of each staircase there are a number of bins for recyclable waste which are emptied by students on a rota system. In the main college, each week one student takes the recycling from their staircase to the maintenance bay, found to the left of the party room under High Court. Hostels leave recycling out on Thursday night for the city council’s kerbside collection on Friday mornings.

What And Where

Paper

  • Wheelie bins - outside the library and opposite F and Q staircases
  • Library photocopying room
  • Computer Room
  • JCR

Cardboard

  • Wheelie bins - as above

Plastic bottles

  • At the bottom of every staircase

Glass

  • At the bottom of every staircase

Cans

  • At the bottom of every staircase
  • JCR

Printer Cartridges and Batteries

  • Maintenance bay

Mobile Telephones

  • On request to the Green Officer

There are plastic recycling facilities in Cambridge, a list of which can be found here. The closest plastic bottle recycling facility to Robinson is at the British Queen pub on Histon Road (for a map visit www.recycle-more.co.uk and click on ‘bank locator’)

'Give me 3 good reasons to recycle...'

  1. Reduce landfill sites...as we're running out of space, we need to try and recycle as much of our waste as possible!

  2. Reduce pollution e.g water draining from landfill sites may pollute nearby water sources

  3. Save resources e.g recycling uses less energy, and prevents further destruction of habitats

Cambridge council has a really good section on their website outlining where recycled goods are taken to - check out the 'enviornment and recycling' section on www.cambridge.gov.uk. The proportion of rubbish recycled in Cambridge is above the national average - we can help to keep it at this level!

REUSING is even better than Recycling...so top tips are:

  1. Open jiffy bags and large envelopes carefully and donate them to the stash in the porters’ lodge. If you need an envelope, say to put an essay into for UMS, ask the porters and they should be able to give you one.
  2. Whilst shopping, try to put items in a bag you’ve taken with you or put several things into one carrier. There's plastic bag recycling available in the JCR if you don't have any spare.
  3. If you need scrap paper, try the recycling box in the library photocopying booth or the computer room. Use both sides of your paper when possible.
  4. Old newspaper can make a stylish wrapping device with a bit of thought. If you're feeling creative think 'Art attack' style and create cards with the use of old cereal packets/collage material from papers and magazines and so on..
  5. Charity and second hand shops -not only good for thrifty times but get more use out of otherwise unwanted clothes,books, furniture...etc. There's lots by the Grafton centre and also Oxfam next to Talking Tees/opposite Sainsburys. There's also a fair few on Mill Road and the road going from WetherSpoons up towards the station,
  6. Instead of buying plastic bottles of drinking water, save up your own in old washed bottles - tap water is subject to more regulations anyway, and most mineral waters are not bottled in the pure way you’d imagine!
  7. An ingenious device to save money, washing chemicals and packaging is the Ecoball, which produces ionized oxygen inside the washing machine to get your clothes clean. They can be used for 1000 washes and cost about £35. You can get them from the Ecozone website. One person I've spoken to has been using theirs for 4 years and says it works really well not so much for stain removal but for freshening clothes that have only been worn once or twice. They reccomended adding essential oils to the wash for an even better scent.
  8. Note that certain materials just can’t be recycled, so consider not buying them in the first place: Tetrapaks, which often contain juice or milk, for example. Chose products that are sparse on packaging (e.g fresh vegetables rather than packaged) to show supermarkets that you don't approve!

There are plastic recycling facilities in Cambridge, a list of which can be found here. The closest plastic bottle recycling facility to Robinson is at the British Queen pub on Histon Road (for a map visit www.recycle-more.co.uk and click on ‘bank locator’)

As well as recycling as much as possible, we can close the consumption gap by purchasing recycled products as well. A fabulous place to start is www.greenshop.co.uk where products on sale include mouse mats made from old tyres, a wind-up mobile phone charger, solar i-pod charger and rulers made from old polystyrene packaging! www.ecotopia.co.uk is a lovely catalogue selling everything from Green and Blacks to organic tampons to paper made from elephant dung. Get stuck in!