Going Green!

Posting by Dave Abbott, Estates Manager

As the Estates Manager at The Sixth Form College, Solihull, I am responsible for all the buildings, grounds and main utilities at the College. I have a dedicated team of site staff who work hard to ensure the College is opened up early in the morning ready for lessons and locked up securely at the end of the day.

At a College as large as this one, we inevitably use a lot of energy – the heating, lighting and power in all the rooms on campus add up to a big bill for a start. We are on a drive to reduce our energy consumption, so that we can save money, but also so we help the environment and reduce our carbon footprint.

Part of this drive to go green has been launched this week, as we joined a national scheme called the Recycle Zone initiative, run by Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd (CCE).

For those of you that don’t know, a ‘Recycle Zone’ is a public facility developed by CCE for recycling soft drinks packaging and it aims to encourage people to recycle their cans and plastic bottles when they are away from home. 

The Recycle Zone project is a partnership between CCE, WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) and plastics recycling charity RECOUP that combines each organisation’s expertise and forms part of CCE’s wider Keep It Going sustainable packaging programme.

This is not the first time we have been doing our bit for the environment. Staff and students have been recycling paper and card for some time now, but we are delighted to extend this to recycling plastics, aluminium and steel cans. We hope that the addition of Recycle Zones – separated containers which are located outside by the Dance Studio and also in the Refectory – will raise environmental awareness among our students and staff.

It’s early days, of course, but I’m delighted to say the scheme seems to be going well so far. Away from College, it has been shown that if recycling is made simple, people are happy to do their bit and I’m sure that will be the case here at College too.

We have had some wonderful support from some students already. One student – Polly Burton – has even set up a student society with the express aim of raising awareness of environmental issues. She launched this society by showing a film called “The Age of Stupid”, which depicted what might happen if we don’t do something now about environmental issues.

Thank you for your enthusiasm so far in recycling plastics and cans and keep up the good work! The more we recycle, the less we send to landfill.