Waste and Recycling

Our current waste contract is with Veolia ES (UK) Ltd and is run in conjunction with the University of Salford and the Royal Northern College of Music. The contract covers the collection of general (residual) waste plus various recyclates.

The contract ensures that we now divert all of our general/non-recyclable waste on main campus and residences from landfill disposal - see here. Veolia achieve this by taking all non-recyclable (residual*) waste to their Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Trafford Park where it is shredded before it is transferred to a facility in FerryBridge in West Yorkshire run by Enfinium where it is used as a Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). See here for more details.

A local company, Elsa Recycling, collect and recycle the majority of the University's waste office paper and cardboard on the main campus.

In addition, we collect and recycle numerous waste streams across the campus using our own staff - see our series of short videos which illustrate how we recycle various waste streams.

The larger recycling points across campus can be found here.

Our most recent waste statistics (2025/6) for operations on campus** are:

  • Total waste produced: 1,699 tonnes
  • Total waste recycled and reused***: 774 tonnes (46%)
  • % of waste diverted from landfill = 100%
  • Cardboard & paper = 19.8%
  • Dry Mixed Recyclates = 1.9%
  • Food waste = 3.3%
  • Green/landscape waste = 4.8%
  • Glass = 1.7
  • Scrap metal = 1.4%
  • Plastics**** = 2.8%
  • WEEE***** =2.2%
  • Toner Cartridges = 0.02%
  • Wood = 1.8%
  • Furniture reuse = 4.9%
  • IT equipment reuse = 0.5%
  • Lab equipment / chemical reuse = 0.4%

* this being the waste that is left after various recyclates have been collected at source.

** these figures do not include any construction waste or waste from Residences

*** this includes green waste which is composted, food waste which is sent to anaerobic digestion, furniture that is re-used via the University's Furniture Store, University's IT equipment reuse, donation and lab equipment and chemical reuse via the UniGreenScheme and LabGood4Reuse.

**** this includes polystyrene

***** this includes batteries and fluorescent tubes