University of Chester

The Client

The University of Chester has campuses in Chester and Warrington.  The University operates out of three sites in Chester: the Parkgate Road Campus, the Riverside Campus and Kingsway Buildings.  The University’s Warrington Campus is a contained site covering 35 acres. The University has also recently acquired Thornton Science Park, near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire which is home to the University’s new Faculty of Science and Engineering.

The Project

B&M Waste Services has been awarded a new three-year waste management contract by the University of Chester.  B&M Waste commenced working with the University in 2011 and has been re-awarded the contract until 2017 so will continue to provide all waste management services across all sites. A key reason for their success in re-securing the waste contract was the transformation of the University’s recycling policy.

B&M Waste Services first started providing waste management services to the University in 2011. Before working with B&M Waste, the recycling rate at the University was just 19%. Working collaboratively with Jacquie Gaffney, the Head of Operations for Estates and Premises at the University of Chester, ambitious targets were set to increase recycling rates.

B&M Waste installed bins for general waste, mixed recycling and glass across the University campuses, and skips for wood, inert rubble and green waste were put in. B&M’s hazardous waste division also installed specialist containers to handle special waste types including fridges, monitors, fluorescent lamps, batteries, oil and excrement.

As part of its service offering, B&M Waste Services provides a food waste collection service across all campuses – including the NoW FOOD Centre (North West Food Research Development Centre), a centre of excellence for small to medium sized food businesses.

B&M Waste also carry out ad-hoc clear outs on-site: for example, we have sorted gym equipment for reuse, cleared and recycled the contents of a flooded cellar and stripped out engineering workshops that are no longer in use.

In 2014 B&M Waste Services also begun working with Shelter to recycle the University’s old furniture. Suitable items are donated to Shelter to be restored, upcycled and sold in their network of retail outlets to raise funds for the charity, or used in furniture ‘starter packs’ for those who have been rehomed but have no possessions.

The Results

The results of B&M Waste’s work to segregate waste streams appropriately means that the University of Chester are now achieving a recycling rate of 99%. Since June 2014, all of the University’s non-recyclable waste is sent to B&M’s £1million Refuse Derived Fuel facility at its site in Trafford Park, Manchester. All non-recyclable residual waste is compacted into bales and transported to a Combined Heat and Power Facility. Energy is then harvested from the residual waste to produce electricity and also steam which produces thermal heating via the district heating system.

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