Huge degree of waste produced by university
THE amount of waste produced by The University of Manchester more than trebled in a single year.
The latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows the university generated a total of 79,869 tonnes of waste in 2016/17.
That’s a jump from 22,885 tonnes of waste generated by the university during the previous year.
It also means the university produced around two tonnes of rubbish for each of the 40,490 students enrolled in 2016/17.
That is the fifth-highest rate in the UK, behind London’s Institute of Cancer Research (2.5 tonnes per student), Imperial College (3.4), and Plymouth College of Art (6.9).
However, Edge Hill University in West Lancashire topped the list, producing a whopping 34.4 tonnes of waste per student. Meanwhile, the University of Abertay Dundee in Scotland was the most wasteefficient university across the UK, producing just 15 kilograms per each student.
The agency measures waste by looking at a range of factors. These include carbon emissions from energy consumption and fuel used in university-owned vehicles, the volume of wastewater for the whole estate, and all carbon emissions associated with the production and treatment of waste. Elsewhere in our area, The Manchester Metropolitan University produced 409.3 kilograms of waste per student, followed by The University of Bolton (194.9), The Royal Northern College of Music (130.1) and the University of Salford (96.4).
The data does not make it clear how much waste is recycled and how much goes to landfill.
A spokesperson from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “More needs to be done and everybody, including universities, have a role to play in reducing avoidable waste and recycle more that can leave our environment in a better state than we found it.
“The government sets the national waste policy and it is for each local authority or waste operator to arrange for collection and disposal of waste in line with legislation including the waste hierarchy.”