Early June signals the beginning of the undergraduate student decant for The University of Edinburgh's undergrad accommodation sites in and around central Edinburgh.
The Undergrad populous forms the majority of the student population at the University of Edinburgh and with thousands of students migrating from all 22 sites simultaneously, each encouraged to participate in the universities resource reuse program, the schedule of work during this 7 day period is complex and chaotic yet seamlessly efficient.
All 22 sites worked to Recreate Scotland's waste to resource protocol. Goods were removed for redistribution via external redistribution platforms in accordance with Recreate Certified's reuse standards and protocols. The outcome - another successful collaboration between The University of Edinburgh and Recreate Scotland achieving impeccable reuse standards during this period of work.
The UofE were hyper reactionary to the terror and subsequent struggles faced by the people of Ukraine this year and were keen to incorporate support mechanisms into the undergraduate resource collection program. The Edinburgh University Students Association and their team of volunteers worked within 4 of the undergraduate sites to process goods suitable for donation to various Ukrainian causes providing aid to those suffering in Ukraine and those starting new lives here in Scotland.
Keen to create an internal resource redistribution event for their students returning for the new academic year, the UofE once again leant on the volunteer network EUSA were able to provide in order to process select goods in these 4 undergraduate sites. A total of 645kg of resources were set aside. A 'Free Shop' is scheduled for September 2022 to facilitate the recirculation of these homewares, kitchenware, stationary, books, and other daily essentials back through the student population.
The remainder of resources collected from the undergraduate student decant process were diverted from unnecessary landfill/recycling disposal methods whilst avoiding the traditional resale models of reuse and instead were filtered through Recreate Scotland's zero cost circular economy frameworks keeping them in circulation using the zero cost framework and guaranteeing a second life cycle for these resources.