Trinity Hall MCR is committed to helping the environment, and it is therefore expected that you’ll do the same. This involves thinking carefully about the environmental consequences of your actions, besides also making sure that you are properly informed about the challenges which we all now face. The following page provides a range of simple, practical advice which will help you to improve your lifestyle, combined with a few links to some larger and more specialised organisations.
If you have any questions, concerns or enquires, please contact the MCR Green Officer.
Green news
- Fairtrade night in the MCR with fairtrade bananas, chocolate, coffee, tea, and wine. Exact dates to be announced soon!
- FoodCycle: Trinity Hall edition. Join us for an evening of combating food waste by cooking up a delicious dinner with good food that would have otherwise been tossed in the bin. More details to come soon!
Other than this, your MCR Green Officer is currently working on the following issues:
- Implementing a spam ban in the plodge and thereby reducing the amount of unwanted fliers ending up in pigeon holes;
- Securing Fairtrade status for College;
- Working with other College members to help College meet our Carbon Reduction Commitment.
Recycling
Recycling is as relevant to individuals as to institutions, since in purchasing goods we also contract ourselves to disposing of the remnants in the most responsible manner possible. The following information should enable you to recycle around 75% of all your waste.
Most or your recyclable waste (including paper, card, glass, tins and cans, and some plastics) will be collected for you by the city council on a weekly basis. It is therefore important that you familiarise yourself with the Recycling Instructions that apply to you. Students living outside Wychfield and the Central Site can additionally find out about recycling collection dates on the City Council website.
Besides these standardised weekly collections, there are also a number of permanent recycling points scattered around the city, through which you can dispose of things which the council will not otherwise collect. A map of these recycling points (telling you what can be recycled and where) is available here. Note that the large supermarkets (Sainsbury’s on Coldhams Lane, Tesco on Newmarket Road, and Waitrose in Trumpington) will all collect a wide range of materials, including textiles and drinks cartons (including those made by Tetra Pak). There is also a battery recycling point at Waitrose, although an easier means of disposing of them is to place them in the designated box by the pigeon holes in Porters’ Lodge on the Central Site.
Avoid wastage of books, clothing, crockery and other brick-a-brack by donating them to charity shops. Don’t worry about their condition: new use can always be found! Larger items such as furniture can be donated to the Salvation Army (Mill Road), Oxfam (Burleigh Street, near Grafton Centre), the charity Emmaus (Green End, Landbeach, CB25 9FD) who are willing to collect items in a van. It is also possible to recycle more complicated items, including mobile phones, printer cartridges and laptops through the help of charities such as Greensource. Note that most charity shops will no longer accept donations of electrical appliances.
Although the council collects food waste from many of the college sites, we should aim to avoid wasting food. At present, almost a third of food purchased in this country is wasted, a factor which contributes to food shortages across the world. To limit your wastage you should 1) avoid the enticement of ‘multibuy’ offers in shops, 2) pay close attention to when different items will expire, making sure to consume food before it becomes inedible, and 3) be creative to revive and combine left-over food. The following link may be of interest.
General Instructions
The Types of Bin
[These distinctions apply to all sites except New Wychfield and Central Site.]
Blue Box (Old Wychfield)
- Use for: Plastic bottles only. These should be rinsed out and have lids removed.
- Do NOT use for: Plastic bottle tops, yoghurt pots, plastic bags, food trays, drinks cups or
plastic egg boxes.
Black Box (Old Wychfield)
- Use for: Paper, rinsed glass bottles and jars, rinsed metal food and drinks cans, clean aluminum foil and aerosol cans.
- Do NOT use for: Broken glass (such as drinking glasses), Pyrex, egg boxes, cardboard and juice cartons, saucepans/metals other than listed above, crisp packets.
Red Box (Old Wychfield)
- Use for: only cardboard (clean and folded).
Disposing of glass
Glass must NOT be disposed of in the regular kitchen bins as it may break and cause injury to cleaners. Unbroken glass should be disposed of in the designated recycling bins.
Any broken glass should be disposed of carefully by wrapping it in newspaper or other protective material. There are dustpans to be found in some kitchens or borrowed from the Portersʼ Lodge for dealing with broken glass. It is advised, however, that you inform bedders of any such breakages.
The carefully wrapped glass should be disposed of directly in the main dumpsters located within the Wychfield or Central Site. For Bateman, Bishop Bateman, and St Clement Gardenʼs residents, all broken glass should be disposed of in the external black wheelie bins.
Recycling batteries
There are boxes in both the central site plodge and Wychfield plodge where used batteries can be deposited for recycling.
College Residences
Launcelot Fleming and Walter Christie Houses
- Note that the blue and black recycling boxes are located outside in the patio area by the ground floor kitchen.
- The black boxes have separate signs indicating their recycling type.
- The red boxes for recycling cardboard are in the ground floor kitchen area.
Dean House and Herrick House
- There are standard blue and black recycling boxes provided.
- Cardboard can be taken to the central recycling bins, located between Herrick House and the Sports Pavilion.
Boulton House
- There are standard blue and black recycling boxes provided.
- Cardboard can be left outside the front next to the trolleys and will be taken away by the House Porter. It can otherwise be taken directly to the central recycling bins, located between Herrick House and the Sports Pavilion.
Central Site
- Bins for recycling paper are also in the Library and the Porterʼs Lodge. There are also bins in the JCR.
- No cardboard or excessive amounts of paper are accepted in this paper bin. Cardboard and excess amounts of paper must be taken to the corresponding large wheelie bins located in the Central Site garage.
New Wychfield
- The new buildings at Wychfield have a different system from the rest of the college, with daily collection of recycling boxes by the House Porter.
- Students are responsible for ensuring that your waste is sorted into the appropriate boxes provided in your house.
- Student are responsible for ensuring that your recycling boxes (when full) are put outside the entrance of your building by 10am. This does not include waste paper bins from rooms and the general waste bin in your kitchen which are dealt with separately by your bedder.
- Every kitchen should have a red box for cardboard (NO food waste) and a small clear box for metal (including cans, tins, foil, aerosols, metal caps/lids from bottles and jars).
- Every kitchen has a corresponding green box for glass bottles and jars located in the ground floor kitchen. These green boxes are marked according to their corresponding kitchen.
- Every living room should have a large clear box for paper.
- The House Porter is responsible for collecting the recycling boxes from outside your house, emptying the contents into the appropriate bins and returning them to the front of your house. Large cardboard boxes should be flattened and left outside your building for collection by the House Porter.
- Your bedder will ensure your boxes are cleaned and returned to their correct places
Energy
Electricity
Students are billed individually for the electricity which they use from the plug sockets in their room, as laid out in the Student Handbook (on the Intranet). It is therefore important—both in financial and environmental terms—that you try to keep your electricity usage to a comfortable minimum. This can be achieved by switching off appliances when not in use (rather than using a standby function), by using low-energy bulbs in lamps, and by avoiding the purchase of goods which are liable to use large amounts of energy.
It is now college policy to fit energy saving light bulbs whenever bulbs need replacing, and we are naturally keen that you do not undo these changes by fitting conventional bulbs of your own. Though energy saving bulbs initially tended to brighten quite slowly and to produce low quality light, recent technological improvements have eliminated many of these limitations, and at present most brands (certainly including Phillips) produce good quality light instantaneously.
Other Advice
- Those who eat lunch/dinner regularly at College can bring along their own mug for coffee instead of using the paper ones provided.
- College printers are defaulted to print double-sided. However, you can go the extra mile and print 2 pages per A4 side, thus saving even more paper.
- Always try to use a lid when cooking food on a hob, so that the heat is not allowed to escape. It will also speed-up cooking rice, pasta and vegetables!
- Only wash clothing when you have enough dirty clothing to fill an entire machine. You might also combine washing with friends, or hand-wash individual items if you are in a hurry.
- Turn-off as many appliances as possible and turn down the heating when leaving your room for a longer time.
- Don’t be afraid to correct the mistakes of other people, even if it means fishing the odd plastic bottle out of a rubbish bin.
- Amend the oversights of other people by removing recyclable items from ordinary bins and putting them in the proper recycling bin.
- Encourage other people to act responsibly by informing them politely about recycling and low-energy living.
For a broader guide to ethical and environmentally sound living in Cambridge, please visit the CUSU Green website. The CUSU organises campaigns and various Green events that might be of interest for you!