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Reducing Waste on Campus

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Library Book Donation Points

Better World Books (BWB) is a for-profit socially minded business that collects and sells books online with each sale generating funds for Libraries and Literacy Partners.

Queen Mary University is proud to work in partnership with BWB and to date, we have donated over 50,000 books. The books are either reused or recycled to avoid going to landfill.

During the 2018/19 academic year staff and students donated nearly 15,000 books. These were collected from the Better World Books banks at libraries across our campuses. Table 3 shows the breakdown of the environmental benefits of the books collected from our Mile End Campus.

 

Table 3: Environmental Benefits of the Recycled and ReUsed Books

End destination of Book

Total

Recycled

ReUsed

Total Books ReUsed or Recycled

14,766

8,575

6,191

Books (kg)

9,166

5,323

3,843

Equivalent Trees Saved

237

136

101

 

British Heart Foundation

 

The Back for Good campaign gives students and staff the opportunity to donate unwanted items such as clothes, electricals, books and furniture to British Heart Foundation collection banks on campus and in the local community.

Queen Mary University of London joined the BHF pack for good campaign late in 2016 siting three red BHF donation banks on the Mile End campus.

The donated items — which would otherwise likely have ended up in landfill — are taken to British Heart Foundation (BHF) charity shops, where they are sold on to make money. The money raised supports the lifesaving research and work of the BHF.

Between October 2018 and September 2019 QMUL collected 1,098 bags of donations for Pack for Good.

This equates to £15,372 raised in funds for BHF research. It also means that a significant amount of waste, 8.8 tonnes (the equivalent of 1.5 elephants), has been diverted away from traditional waste streams. The equivalent of 89,395 kgs of co2 greenhouse gas emissions being avoided.

 

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