Each year, 8 million tonnes of plastic waste is added to our oceans – 250kg every second. To help solve this problem, King’s is committed to fighting single-use plastics.
King’s Sustainability Team and ResiLife’s Sustainable Living Communities will be teaming up with Bywaters on Friday 25 October to remove rubbish from the bankside of the River Thames. Link to register to the event, here.
By removing plastics (and other waste) from the Thames, our students and staff will play their part in preventing more waste from ending up in the ocean, and also help keep one of Britain’s most popular spaces sustainable for future visitors.
All of the waste we collect through the litter pick will then sorted for recycling at Bywaters’ state-of-the-art Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), with the resulting segregated waste being sent to specialist recycling plants across the UK.
Educating students on issues like this is important to King’s and it is the reason why, alongside providing the most sustainable waste management services possible, we’ve created a ResiLife initiative that focuses on a different Sustainable Development Goal every month.
This month (October 2019) is SDG6: Clean Water! We have been raising awareness of residents’ water use, thinking about how each of us can reduce the amount of single-use plastics that end up in our waterways, as well as giving away re-usable bottles, canvas bags, and other sustainable alternatives.
The aim of this initiative is to change perspectives – encouraging students to think about the importance of water in their lives and increase water-use efficiency, with the hope of protecting and restoring water-related ecosystems for present and future generations.
