We have a new member in our recycling family.

Put your hands together and give a warm welcome to CERAMICS!

We are now able to accept ceramics for recycling- including plates, cups, jars, pottery, art works etc and anything else made of ceramics …(even tacky figurines!!).

If the ceramics are reusuable please advertise them on the reuse list: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/estates/services/waste/disposal/Furniture.htm

If broken: Please put any broken clean uncontaminated ceramics in the glass recycling containers.

Ceramics are processed in Bedlington by http://www.recycleitall.com/ to make aggregate for road building.

Our campus wide, year-long energy awareness campaign Switch Off 2010 launched last week with support from the Vice Chancellor, Professor Chris Brink and Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Portfolio Holder for Sustainable Development, Professor Tony Stevenson.

Switch Off 2010 is about switching off lighting and electrical equipment whenever it is not in use, in an attempt to reduce energy consumption on campus.

The campaign is part of the University’s 10:10 efforts, to reduce its CO2 emissions by 10% in 2010.

Throughout the year, Switch off 2010 will focus on one University building per week using various communications including email, display stands and banners. There will also be a drop in lunch session and roadshow in every building to encourage discussion about energy use. The launch last week was in the Agriculture Buiding and this week we are in the Robinson Library Building.

Look out for our banners appearing on campus to track the progress of Switch Off 2010!

Find out more about Switch Off 2010 at ncl.ac.uk/switchoff2010

If you haven’t been in touch with us and would like to arrange for Switch Off 2010 to be in your building for a specific week please let us know by emailing to saveit@ncl.ac.uk

I am always amazed at the popularity, amounts and types of items that are advertised on the furniture reuse mail base.

The furniture mailbase has been running for about 18 months and it seems like it is a really useful service for those seeking furniture.

Everyone always says how useful it is and this is great…but, we do have a problem for those seeking furniture!

As soon as somebody posts an item, it seems like it is snapped up almost straight away!

For example: Martin in the Cassie building posted “Two banks of six lockers with own padlock” at 15.12 yesterday.

Then at 15.18 he then posted “Two banks of six lockers with own padlock. TAKEN by phone bid!”

This led to Tim Robson to comment “Crikey that was quick, who wanted them? Usain Bolt?!”

(If you do not know who Usain Bolt is check you tube here)

This actually happens with a lot of items, and most people know what it feels like to get gazumped on the furniture list (including me- which feels a little bit weird! !).

Even items you think that no body would ever want, get claimed- such as old china and even desk tidies!

With any items that are not “TAKEN” within 12 hrs I send a message out to 40 local charities.

This is a great service for charities and means that charities can spend what little money they have on helping others rather than on boring things like operators chairs and filing cabinets!

These operators chairs all went to a local charity saving them about 2K

In the past year charities have received all manner of goods. Your usual fare like operators chairs and desks but some unusual items like massive works of art and even a safe! Lever Arch files and stationery are also really popular.

Two large student works of art now hang in a charities foyer and another charities dinner hall.

Please let me know, if you know of a charity who would benefit from our office furniture.

Nothing much slips through the reuse net, but items that do end up at our central recycling area where they are broken up into timber and scrap metal for recycling.

It is challenging to find a home for old chairs lke this, so we split them up for their scrap metal and timber.

Sometimes porters are still called to departments where staff have not used the furniture mail base…for example 20 of these were sent for disposal last week- and they looked as if they had never been used.

So some people are still not using the system. If you get a chance please spread the word in the admin and building management corridors!

I will try to make using the furniture reuse mailbase easier in the coming months as I think it is still a little clunky, especially for new members. If anyone has any bright ideas let me know.

if you are not member of the list please send an email to sympa@newcastle.ac.uk and copy and paste the following into subject line: SUBSCRIBE furniturereuse YOUR NAME.

See details here: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/estates/services/waste/disposal/Furniture.htm

Thank you all for making this system useful for the institution and local charities.

Daniel
Waste Manager
222 3963

BBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrr

With the massive drop in temperatures last week something has suddenly jumped up everyone’s agenda…ROOM TEMPERATURE!

Room temperature is a term to denote a certain temperature in buildings at which humans are accustomed and comfortable.

Room temperature is thus often indicated by general human comfort, with the common range of 20 to 25 degrees Celcius.

However some people are comfortable at different temperatures which can cause some issues in offices.

For example you might have “warm” people and “cold” people in your office. Further confusing the issue at the University, climate may acclimatize people to higher or lower temperatures which is a problem for our overseas staff and students.

For human comfort, desirable room temperature greatly depends on individual needs and various other factors such as height, weight, whether or not circulatory problems exist, and overall health.

This is why in an office of 10 people you might always find one or two people that are too warm or too hot at the same temperatures.

This is a great challenge for us in the sustainability team as we try to ensure that as many people as possible are comfortable without having to resort to personal heaters.

We try to discourage as far as possible the use of personal heaters because they are very high users of energy.

George also says “The warmest parts of a room are away from the windows, so put “cold” people away from the window and “warm” people next to the window.”

If you experience temperature issues on your work area remember to dress in layers. If you are too hot take layers off if you are too cold pop layers on.

If you have regular problems with the temperature in your room and would like a temperature strip monitor for your room please email saveit@ncl.ac.uk

Thanks very much to all those that emailed in their suggestions of what we don’t recycle here on campus. Winning entries will have their Save It mugs heading their way very soon…congratulations and enjoy!

Here is a list of the winning suggestions:

Clive Gerard (ISS) Plastic pill containers with metal foil pop wrappers
Deb Payne (Medical Sci) Aerosol cans/carbon paper
Emma Simblett (CEGs) Mobile Phones/Clothes
Gillian Mabbitt (Careers) Backing paper for sheets of labels
Karen McTigue (MSE) Laddered tights and stockings/used pens/sellotape
John Knowles (Dove Marine Lab) Heavy duty rubber gloves
Keith Roberts (Biosciences) Empty Tipp-Ex Containers
Ian Pitcher (EECE) Wood
Maggie Tallerman (Linguistics) Leather items/Nets for oranges/Ground coffee packets
Mari Jones (CEGs) Cooked foods
Richard Dawson (CEGs) Cloths/Sponges/Aerosol cans

Hannah

We are going out of our way to encourage students to behave more sustainably this year.

We have developed a Student Engagement Strategy with lots of interesting activities being planned.

One of these activities was delivering a campaign at the start of term in all of the halls of residences. We worked with accomodation services to deliver a co ordinated campaign where the main messages were to turn stuff off and recycle! Pretty simple really.

These photos show some of the flavour of the campaign:

Plant a tree and help to achieve a new Guinness World Record with the BBC.

On Saturday 5th December 11am-12noon the BBC is launching an attempt to plant the most amount of trees ever in one hour, across the UK.

You can find out more about the local and national tree planting events and giveaways on the Tree O’clock website.

To coincide with this initiative here at Newcastle University we expect delivery on Friday of the free trees that were ordered by many staff at our World Environment Day event.

These trees will be available for collection from 12.00-1.30pm on Friday 4th December, outside Merz Court.

Hannah

We are developing a new electricity use campaign called “Switch off 2010!”

The main message of the campaign is to switch off electrical items when not in use- especially when staff leave for home!

The target audience is mainly staff and we will be hitting a building per week every week starting in January with the “Switch Off 2010!” campaign.

When developing any communications we have to consider our target audience and what response we desire. We need to explore: what language to use, how to use it, what material will be engaging, what will prick the awareness bubble, what will drive action…Etc etc.

Every sentence and what it infers is poured over and debated! This has been especially hard this time as it is the first time the whole team has been involved in one project.

The “slog” on this communication has highlighted again to me how much I enjoy the creative process when you are producing communications. It is really challenging to get everybody’s opinion into the content and then finding a compromise that 1) people are happy about but 2) still gets the desired response from the reader.

Our communications content usually start life as a bit of work someone has strung together. The whole team then breaks it down until we are happy with it. This means lots of passing around on the email and meetings etc.

There have been a few versions of the current communications leaflet we are working on because we kinda over engineered it to start with……then we reviewed it.. then we went to the Futerra masterclass …. and we reviewed it again!!!!

The next step is to market test the 1st draft for feedback- so we will be passing this to our 70 odd Environmental Co ordinators before next meeting for feedback….and it could be back to the drawing board! Yoikes!

Any hoo here is our draft before it goes to the printers to prepare a pdf for environmental co ordinator to comment on. (our printers Alphagraphics are very patient and produce excellent results from our scribbles!)
Dan

It’s getting towards that festive time of year again, bring on the mince pies!

If you’re looking for Christmas gift ideas with a difference the Energy Saving Trust have just published a list of fun, environmentally friendly options aimed at the whole family on their website.

So if you’re looking for some gift inspiration check out the Energy Saving Trust webpage to found out more.

Happy Shopping!
Hannah

We have just introduced campus textile recycling.

We have had textile recycling in the student residences for a long time but we still generate quite a bit on campus too:

The recycling facility is ran by The Salvation Army.

Textiles made from both natural and man-made fibres can be recycled. Textiles include: curtains, bedding, towels, handbags, cloths, rugs and mats.

PLEASE NOTE WE CANNOT ACCEPT ANY PERSONAL TEXTILES FROM HOME. All textiles to be recycled must have been generated as part of University activities.

Make sure the items are clean. We cannot accept oily rags. Remove any NU logos.

Clothes placed in the textile bank are taken to a warehouse for sorting and separated into those good enough to wear again and those that aren’t.

Textiles good enough to wear again are often exported to Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

The rest is reprocessed: 22% will be used as filling for furniture, vehicle seats etc; 12% will be used as industrial rags or wiping cloths. Only 7% cannot be used again.

The fibre reclamation process
The mills grade incoming material by material type and colour. The colour sorting means no re-dying has to take place, saving energy and pollutants. Initially the material is shredded into fibres then spun ready for reweaving or knitting. The new yarns can then be used to make new items.

The new fibres can be used to make new clothes, furnishings, blankets, towels and many more things. Industrial quality “blankets” which protect equipment whilst being transporting is one example of what recycled textiles may become.