just received the following pic from Deana Boulton the manager up at Richardson Road, halls of residence:

Accompanying the piccie was the following ‘A recycling string for cans – invented by students at Ricky Road for students!’

Not sure what they are getting…maybe it is a recycled firemans pole??

As usual the students are demonstrating that they are vibrant, creative, spontaneous and accepting of new ideas (and intelligent!).

What many people sometimes forget is that although students are ‘carefree’ they do care about the environment they live and work in.

It is always a challenge communicating to students and getting them to behave more sustainably on campus- they have alot going on (in their heads and social life) and our sustainability messgaes must compete with the tsunami of junk messages they get on a daily basis.

Therefore the approach must be as good as the best marketing! It should be FUN, clear and friendly. The approach needs to be innovative and fresh avoiding authoritarian and stuffiness.

here is an example from a campaign we delivered last year:

Information must be succinct and relevant. Therefore the tone and content of communications should change over time to suit trends.

And of course the student community is transient, so marketing has to be continuous.

And finally this was found on the roof of Ricky Rd accomodation last year..taken from a nearby park. Another example of student ingenuity. On viewing the photo Jennifer Molyneux remarked, “Do you think the students know something about climate change that we do not?”

I knew this already after organising many compost give aways over the last few years, but PEOPLE LOVE COMPOST!

Friday was the first day we gave away our campus processed compost

Here you can see some happy compost-ateers loading their bags up with the help of Paul.

It was really good to be able to give people compost for free as everyone seemed so passionate about it! We had about 20 visitors…and cleared about a half of compost!!…

All of the compost is produced by collecting the food waste from kitchens and commmon rooms across the campus. All of your banana peels, tea bags and sarnies get turned into compost by the Rocket composter.

One part of Paul’s job is to look after the Rocket and here we see him making some adjustments.

As long as staff and students want the material this offer will continue!

At the moment we have about 3/4 tonne of good/excellent grade compost left. I will update the grade of compost each week on the order form:

PS
I remember when my Dad used to take me to see Newcastle United, when i was very young and hearing about compost for the first time.

The police would be on horse back and you would see people putting the manure straight into bags and when I asked my Dad what they were doing it for, he told me about compost and growing leeks. I remember thinking they must really like growing leeks to put horse manure on it!