I went to my final Sustainability Working Group meeting as Ethics and Environment Officer this week! It’s been a bit of a slow year for sustainability, what with Covid restrictions – in some ways we’ve even gone backwards. But good progress is still being made, and college staff are working hard to make the college more environmentally friendly.

Some key college updates:

• Due to lockdown, we’ve seen a significant rise in the food waste (by almost 30%) that goes into Wadham’s compost bins – this will be good for the gardens! This year about 50% of the compost used in the college gardens was from composted garden waste.
• We’ve made about a 12% annual energy saving this year!
• We have reduced the red meat on Wadham menus by almost 90% this year.

Notes for students:

• Please stop washing dishes in bedroom sinks, it’s messing up the plumbing on main site.
• Remember to dispose of Vegware containers (from takeaway dinners) in the red bins, not the recycling or the general waste.
• Every time someone cleans their teeth and they leave the tap running they use approximately 12 Litres of water (taps use approx. 6 litres a minute and brushing of teeth is recommended at 2 minutes). Brushing your teeth twice a day therefore 24 litres a day, by as many as 240 students – we might be using up to 5,760 litres to clean our teeth at Wadham! By turning off the tap while you brush you can personally save 6 litres per clean and 12 litres a day.

Wadhlove,

Freddie