Recycling students’ old stuff

Students packing up to leave St Andrews for the summer holidays are making unprecedented efforts to ensure their old belongings are recycled and reused.

Tonnes of household items are cleared out as thousands of university students move out of their digs at the end of term time.

To avoid goods being chucked into landfill waste, an initiative has been launched to recycle or redistribute them to good causes and next year’s freshers.

Collection points have been set up across the St Andrews University estate where furniture, clothes, footwear, books, pots and pans and other stuff can be handed in.

The StAndReUse scheme will also see bedding, usually turfed to landfill, deconstructed to be made into new products such as stuffing for mattresses and other soft furnishings.

University environment officer Barbara Aitken said: “The traditional end-of-term clear-out is a huge undertaking requiring careful planning and the involvement of many operational staff.

“However in the same token it also provides a wonderful opportunity for our students to minimise waste, reuse and recycle their unwanted household goods.”

The project, being run in conjunction with the council’s Resource Efficient Solutions company, will benefit Forces Support, a local foodbank and the children’s charity Barnardo’s.