Grundon has been awarded a three-year waste management contract with the University of Brighton.
A drive to promote a zero-waste culture saw the university, which boasts a community of around 17,000 students and over 2,000 staff across three campuses, put its waste contract out to tender earlier this year.
Ella Pearce, Client Engagement & Strategy Manager at Grundon, says a combination of innovative ideas and understanding the university’s waste data helped win the contract.
“We are thrilled to be working alongside the university’s sustainability team and supporting their drive towards ‘rethink, reduce, reuse and recycle’,” said Ella.
“When we took a long, hard look at the data, we identified many opportunities to increase recycling rates; from simpler ideas such as providing extra bins and improving signage, through to waste education programmes and investing in the latest waste technologies.”
Ella Pearce
Client Engagement & Strategy Manager
Grundon will collect a wide range of waste streams including general waste, dry mixed recycling, glass, food waste, waste electronics (WEEE), batteries and hazardous waste – anything from sawdust to fluorescent tubes.
Another tick in the box for the university is the fact that Grundon has a waste facility in nearby Ford. This helps keep travelling time to a minimum and, because the waste fleet is certified CarbonNeutral®, it supports customers to reduce their carbon footprint.
“We have been extremely impressed by the depth of expertise, knowledge and ideas shown by the Grundon team so far through the tender and mobilisation processes. Ella and her colleagues worked hard to understand our recycling goals and we can’t wait to see as their plans start to make a real difference.”
Lucy Lisle
Interim Head of Sustainability
“In addition, we’re looking forward to using the dedicated customer portal to view latest statistics with weights and collections, supporting our reporting processes and providing a further understanding of waste streams.”
The new contract began on 1 August and multiple bin stores for different waste streams are already in place at 19 different locations, together with food caddies in halls of residence, restaurants and cafés.
As students return next month, Grundon will be flying the recycling flag at the University’s Welcome Fest event across the three campuses – Falmer, Moulsecoomb and City – engaging with students to influence waste management behaviour.
Ella says they are keen to get the waste and recycling messages across to students through a range of interactive games and information, adding: “Understanding what we are trying to achieve will help ensure everyone is aware of, and benefits from, the changes we will be making as we support the university in its move towards zero-waste.
“We will also be undertaking an in-depth waste composition analysis in October so we can track trends in terms of how and where students dispose of their waste, and that will help direct us towards ensuring we have the correct technologies in place.”
Future plans could include trials of AI-led waste bins and introduction of niche waste stream services such as paper towel recycling.