Edinburgh University Students' Association reduces waste sent to landfill by 25 tonnes
Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA) has reduced waste sent to landfill by 25 tonnes at its Edinburgh Festival venues, thanks to a new recycling scheme.
Venues including the Pleasance, Potterrow and Teviot are serving food and drink in compostable packaging made by Vegware, Edinburgh's Green Company of the Year 2012. The mixed food waste is collected by local social enterprise CORE and taken for organics recycling.
EUSA president James McAsh said: "We are proud to be the first students' association in Scotland to have completely adopted Vegware compostable packaging across all our catering outlets.
"Festival-goers and students can be safe in the knowledge that the 25 tonnes of food waste generated by our venues during August, together with the wrapping it was served in, will be disposed of responsibly by our partners at CORE - reducing our landfill costs and our carbon footprint in the process."
The zero-waste initiative is in place across EUSA's 19 catering outlets - the extra nine festival-time catering outlets as well as the 10 term-time outlets. EUSA's team of joiners has created 19 bespoke recycling stations with clear signage helping festival-goers choose the right bin.
Vegware communications manager Lucy Frankel said: "The eco disposables used so far have saved over 800kg of carbon and 1.6 tonnes of virgin materials, and is set to divert over four tonnes of used packaging from landfill.
"It seems fitting that with Scotland leading the way with zero-waste legislation, a Scottish university should be leading the way with zero-waste events."
By Lisa Jenkins
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