(Photo L-R) Jake Dixon – Facilities Team Leader and Pete Newbigging – Facilities Assistant.
Scotland's Climate Week - Stories for Change
Borders College was one of the first colleges in Scotland to set up and fully implement a zero-to-landfill policy. This policy saw no waste from the Scottish Borders Campus, Newtown St Boswells Campus, and Tweedbank Campus go to landfills but instead ensured all waste was fully separated for recycling.
The environmental scheme, which started in April 2023, is part of the Borders College approach to sustainability and waste management strategy to completely eliminate the disposal of waste in landfill.
Over a year later the College is able to report some staggering environmental benefits in implementing the policy. Waste is categorised as general waste, DMR (Dry Mixed Recycling), wood, metals and green waste.
General waste is collected and then initially sorted to extract anything that can be recycled. Once this is completed, the remaining material goes through a Solid-Recovered Fuel process and, once shredded and dried, is used as a fuel source by the likes of Tarmac, who use it to fuel their cement kilns, thus reducing the requirement for any disposal in landfill.
Once segregated, card, paper, plastic, and tin DMR are completely repurposed for a second use. Wood recycling is used, depending on its grade, for board making or biomass fuel. All metal waste (aluminium, steel, etc.) is separated and then moved onto UK metal re-processors for reuse. Green (garden-type) waste is bulked and used for compost. Brick and rubble from our Tweedbank Campus are separated, cleaned or crushed, and then sold to the construction industry for reuse.
In the period 2023 to 2024, the total waste from Borders College was 110.52 tonnes, of which 110.52 tonnes were reused, composted, and used for waste-to-energy or anaerobic digestion.
58.98% of the waste is recycled, 7.92% is composted, 42.62% is water-to-energy, and 7.92% is anaerobic digestion with zero-to-landfill.
Borders College uses the services of Hamilton Waste Recycling, Scotland’s first carbon-neutral recycling company, to fulfil its ambitious zero-to-landfill policy.
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