Go4SET
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – it all adds up!
Introduction
This years Go4SET challenge has asked that we look at the waste that we produce in
our school, find out how waste is treated or disposed of generally by the local
authority and also a local company and then use the information we have gathered to
produce some proposals that will help reduce the amount of waste our school is
putting into the bins.
This booklet is to explain how we investigated the waste produced by St Luke’s High
School, GlaxoSmithKline and our local authority, East Renfrewshire.
The Team Members
Our team consists of seven members: Nadine Gallagher, Rachel McGuire, Holly
McLaughlin, Louisa Kearney and Daniel Innes. Our seventh member used to be Blair
Wilson but he withdrew from the team and was replaced by Hannah Hall.
As well as being part of the Go4Set challenge, some members of the team are
involved in other extra-curricular activities such as the eco committee, the drama
club, the netball club and the cookery club.
Our teacher is David Baird from the Design and Technology Department.
Our mentor from GlaxoSmithKline is Charlie Duke, a mechanical engineering associate.
They both helped with the organisation process and Charlie has constantly updated us
with e-mails and has helped us organise when and what we are going to do. Charlie has
also visited us at our school to see how we were getting on and prepare us for our
visit to his company.
Planning for the Challenge
Charlie and some of the team at the launch
When we were told what we had to do for the Go4SET challenge we thought it would
be hard to get all of the information in so little time. We then broke all of the things
we needed to do into small sections and worked out when we would do them using a
Gantt chart sent to us by Charlie. We met regularly and brainstormed how we would
go about getting the information we needed and also decided on the questions we
would need to ask. We allocated jobs to everyone about the three different places we
would visit. Rachel and Nadine are the project leaders for the school interviews and
review, Holly and Louisa are the project leaders for the company visit and Hannah and
Daniel are the project leaders for the local authority. Although there are project
leaders for each section of the report, everyone is expected to contribute
throughout to the whole project.
Problems Completing the Challenge
We faced many problems whilst completing the Go4SET report. There were problems
with some delays when getting back in touch with our advisors if we needed more
facts and information because they were busy with their own work. There were little
delays in getting the company and East Renfrewshire council visits organised also
because of their own commitments.
We also had a big problem with our own time management. Many of us had other
commitments/clubs during the process of completing our report, had to miss some
meetings and were therefore a bit late in getting started. The school has short lunch
breaks therefore it was difficult for us to keep up with our plans in the Gantt chart.
We also faced the problems of changes in our team members which caused us to have
to share out the work and the roles again. Some absences occurred during the writing
of the report which also held things up.
The sharing of work went quite well although we needed to take time to put it all
together into one report.
St Luke’s High School Research Results
Organisation for audit
We split up into groups and arranged to interview different staff from different
departments to find out what they know about the schools recycling habits, what
kinds of materials go in the bins and how much waste is produced using the questions
we had decided on. We visited the following departments: Business Studies, Science,
R.E./P.S.H.E., Maths, The Office, Home Economics, English, Social, Subjects, I.T.,
French, P.E., Drama, Music, Library, and Tech. We also visited the Janitors, the
Technicians and the Dinner Staff.
Research
Here are the questions that we asked and the answers provided.
Q. Are there food waste bins in the school?
A. (Dinner Ladies) Yes.
Q. How much food is thrown away?
A. (Dinner Ladies) Quite a lot.
Q. Are there paper waste bins in the school?
A. (Janitor) Yes, most departments.
Q. How often and how much is collected?
A. (Janitor) Teachers empty the paper sacks into the big paper bins whenever they
are full which is about every couple of weeks.
Q. Are there any other bins in the school?
A. Each classroom has a general waste bin for food,
bottles, cans and other mixed waste.
Q. Which subject departments produce waste?
A. (Janitor) All departments produce general and most produce paper.
Q. What waste is collected from your individual department?
A.
- (Janitor) Broken furniture and paper
-
(Library) Empty Ink Cartridges and paper
(Tech), Metal, timber and paper
(Business Studies) Paper
(Art) Paper
(Science) Glass and Paper
(Technicians) Glass
(Math) Paper
(Office) Paper
(Home Economics) Cardboard, Food and paper
(English) Cans, glass, cardboard and paper.
(Social Studies) Paper, paperclips and poly pockets
Q. Are the taps in the school eco friendly?
A. (Janitor) There are percussion taps in the bathrooms. They are pushed down to
release water and after about 15 seconds they pop back up again.
Q. Are there garden waste bins?
A. (Janitor) No, not at the moment
Q. Have you got any other ideas for reducing waste production?
A.
- (I.C.T.) We should have bins for collecting glass in the classroom
- (French) We should recycle more things.
- (P.E.) We should photocopy paper less, we should reuse homework sheets. Every day
all of the teachers receive an absence bulletin on paper and it should be sent out by
e-mail.
- (Dining Hall) We should prepare less food each day. We should work out the number
of pupils who are buying each type of food and reduce the food made.
- (Janitor) We should have more food bins in the dinner hall.
- (Tech) We should have recycling facilities in the classroom for cans and bottles for
the kids. We need more guidance on what we can recycle and where it should be put
- (Art) Pictures should be put up on the whiteboard instead of giving out lots of
copies.
- (Science) More pupils should hand back notes and homework sheets to save printing
new ones.
- (Office) At school masses we should project hymn words onto a wall instead of
printing new booklets every time.
- (English) There should be facilities for collecting cans and plastic in the classroom.
Conclusions from the School Audit
From the information that we gathered from the audit, we realised that our school
doesn’t do much recycling. Every department recycles paper but we could be doing a
lot more.
 We could use some new bins to help staff and pupils put their rubbish in the
correct places.
 We noticed that our school doesn’t have a proper waste management policy.
 We don’t update people on what we are doing to become more eco friendly.
 We are thinking of setting up a new school website to let people know what to
do with their waste.
 We need to link better with the Local Authority waste collection
GlaxoSmithKline Company Visit
GSK are a large research-based pharmaceutical company with a large plant in
Irvine. It employs around 99,000 people in over 100 countries and makes almost four
billion packs of medicines and healthcare products every year. Over 15,000 people
work in their research teams to discover new medicines. They supply one quarter of
the world's vaccines and by the end of February 2009 had more than 20 vaccines in
clinical development.
Organisation of visit
After we had arranged a date to visit the company, our team travelled down to Irvine
by car to meet with our mentor Charlie Duke. We had sent Charlie a copy of the
questions that we hoped to answer on our visit.
When we first arrived at GlaxoSmithKline in Irvine, we signed in at the front desk
then were escorted upstairs to a conference room where we listened to speakers
organised by Charlie. They answered our questions and provided other information
through Power Point presentations.
These speakers were; Susanne Pope, Dr Frank Wayman and
Dr.Craig Henderson.
Susanne Pope works for Veolia Environmental Services who are contracted to handle
GSK’s Waste. Dr Frank Wayman works for Alpheus and controls the water treatment
After this we were given a brief tour of the site and were shown the company’s large
storage tanks and lots of recycling skips. The company site extends over 400 acres
and the company has provided so many bins and recycling skips that they need a map
on their website to ensure that people know where to find them and put the right
things into the right bins!
The tour of the site was also very helpful in showing us all how much the company
recycles their waste and how much waste there is. There were lots of small bins that
had to be emptied into larger skips that were kept in a separate compound.
After our thrilling tour of the site, we came back to the building for our lunch. We
had a marvellous meal of fish and chips. We then came back home to St Luke’s High
for afternoon lessons. Thanks to everyone at GlaxoSmithKline for a very enjoyable
and informative day.
Research
Q. Why would the company want to reduce waste?
A. The company want to reduce waste because of the cost, environmental impact,
keep in line with the law, sell it back to the original companies and to improve their
public image.
Q. How much does the waste cost the company?
A. The waste costs approximately £425,000 per year.
Q. How does the company dispose of experiments and chemicals safely and ecofriendly?
A. The company disposes of experiments and chemicals safely by incinerating them.
Q. What other kinds of waste does it produce?
A. Some of the other kinds of waste it produces are:
 Aluminium Cans
 Metals
 Garden Waste
 Glass
 Paper
 Plastic Cups
 Soil / Rubble Inert
 Wood
 Fluorescent Tubes
 Fridges



Mixed WEEE (Electrical Goods)
Redundant Monitors
Toner Cartridges
Q. How is the waste sorted?
A. The waste is sorted into two main groups - hazardous and non-hazardous.
Chemical waste from experiments is hazardous and goes for incineration. Dry
waste from around the site and demolishing buildings is non-hazardous and goes
for recycling or landfill.
Hazardous and Non-hazardous Waste
Hazardous
Non-hazardous
26%
74%
Q. What recycling bins are provided in the factory and are they used often?
A. This is a copy of the company’s diagram to show where their bins are. They have
a lot of recycling bins to ensure that they dispose of waste materials correctly.
Q. How
often are
these
recycling
bins
emptied?
A. The large
skips are
emptied
approximatel
y weekly
This map can be seen on the official
GlaxoSmithKline website
Q. Where does the waste go?
A. The waste goes to recycling centres where it is sorted, some to incinerators,
landfills and partial recovery, In terms of medicine production, 2 % of the input
comes back out as a product and 98 % is waste. A lot of this is water and is
treated on site before going back to sea.
Disposal Routes 2009
9%
Recycled, Re-used,
Recovered
6%
Partial recovery
17%
Incineration
Landfill
68%
Q. How do you dispose of leftover food and other small materials?
A. The leftover food and other small materials go to a recycling landfill.
Q. How is the company working to reduce, reuse and recycle?
A. The company is working to reduce, reuse and recycle by reducing the volumes
where possible (packaging etc.), increasing recycling through better collection
systems and fully involving the employees.
Q. How do you encourage your employees to be eco-friendly in their work?
A. The company encourages their employees to be eco – friendly in their work by
having regular meetings and keeping them informed through the website or
Environmental Hub.
Interactive page from the company Hub
Q. How does
monitor waste?
A. The company
waste by
volumes that it
through their
the company
monitors
measuring the
sends out
recycling
contractors and own waste systems.
Q. What plans are there for the future?
A. For the future GSK are hoping to get even better at involving employees at
recycling and increase the amount of recycling that they do.
Conclusions from the GSK Visit
After our visit to GlaxoSmithKline, we have concluded that the company is very
successful in being eco-friendly and is great at recycling, reusing and reducing waste.
We think this is because:
 They have great advertising techniques within the company and also because
they have information about their recycling scheme on their website.
 They have regular meetings where the company educate their employees on the
eco-policy in the workplace and involve them in decisions.
 GSK has a very clear policy on ecological issues and this policy can be seen on
the website and on the walls of the office building as soon as you walk in the
front doors.
 The company is linked with the recycling company – Veolia. It is in their
interest financially to recycle successfully.
 GSK recognise all of the advantages, financially of recycling in their company.
They realize the increasing financial penalties of spending on landfills and want
to change this. It is obviously much in the long run to recycle.
Local Authority – East Renfrewshire Council
Organisation of audit
To help us gather information on how waste material is collected and treated in our
local area we invited Erica Kemmet, who is a Waste Minimisation Officer for East
Renfrewshire Council, to our school to talk to us about waste in East Renfrewshire.
The questions that we had prepared were sent to Erica before our meeting so that
she could collect the information that we needed.
Research
Here are some of the questions we asked her.
Q. How much waste is thrown out in a week in East Renfrewshire?
A. 1030tonnes per week in 2008/09
- 954tonnes per week from homes
- 74 tonnes per week from companies using LA facilities
Q. Where is the waste materials put?
A.38% is recycled/composted and approximately 60% is sent to landfill.
Q. How much does it cost the local authority to manage waste?
A. Moving the waste (collection / transport / sorting / dumping) costs = £2.9million
and disposal costs = £3.5million.
Landfill tax = £40 tonnes until April 2010 to increase to £48 and will continue to
increase by £8 per annum until it reaches £72 per tonne.
Q. How is waste collected in the local area?
 From homes  From CompaniesA.
From homes- grey 240litre bin for residual/landfill waste, brown 240litre bin for
garden waste, blue 55litre box for glass/cans, white 48litre sack for paper/light
card, green 110litre bag for plastic food and drink containers, 20litre green bucket
for food waste (only extends to 6000 homes and school kitchens/council premises).
Local recycling collection points have been set up where people can take electrical
goods, furniture, cardboard etc.
From companies- the companies choose if they want to use the council facilities or
they may employ a private company to remove their waste.
Q. What kinds of waste are collected?
A.
Kerbside collections from houses: paper and light card, glass and cans, plastic food
and drinks containers, garden waste.
At civic amenity sites and recycling centres (e.g. off Carlibar Road, Barrhead): all of
the above plus - textiles, timber, MDF & laminates, engine oil and batteries,
household batteries, waste electrical and electronic equipment (anything with a
battery or a plug) stone and rubble, fridges & freezers.
Q. How is the waste sorted?
A. People sort it in their own bins and some waste is further sorted in recycling
centres/factories. Glass and cans are mechanically sorted at a materials reclamation
facility or MRF.
Q. How much of the waste is recycled?
A. The percentage of waste that is recycled is presently 38.3%. We have a target of
43% to meet by 2013. This is not going to be easy to meet as 5% points equates to an
additional 2500tonnes to be diverted to recycling.
Q. Have you made any changes to make the authority more eco-friendly?
A. We are constantly working to raise awareness in the local area and local authority
establishments (reduce – reuse – recycle)
Plans for the future are important as we need to reduce waste and increase recycling
- Love food - Hate waste campaign (30% of waste sent to landfill is food),
- Home-composting campaign,
- Promote cloth or real nappy use instead of disposable ones
- Furniture reuse
- More comprehensive food waste recycling for households.
Q. How do you influence the public?
A. Education and awareness-raising publicity campaigns in local press, visits to schools
and community talks. Implement an excess waste policy (which means that homes are
only allowed one bin)… other local authorities only collect landfill bins once per
fortnight to encourage greater recycling participation.
Q. How do you influence companies?
A. Not a lot of work has been done in this area as it is not our core remit but we do
promote Tidy Business Standards (see Keep Scotland Beautiful). The LA are going
to introduce commercial recycling options and will incentivise this by offering cheaper
collection charges for recycling than landfill waste. We will also target business
customers with publicity campaigns.
Conclusions from the Local Authority
East Renfrewshire Council (our local authority) has some good and some bad areas of
recycling. We know this because:
 They advertise quite well, but they sometimes make changes to recycling
without informing the public properly.
 Most houses have been given multiple bins to help them sort and recycle waste.





People are not always clear about what can be put in each bin
They do have a policy on recycling that they are working on
They will meet European recycling targets this year but will struggle in 2011
without more public support.
They do work to educate people and pupils in schools but could do better.
They want to help schools recycle more waste but it needs to be organised in
the schools for collection.
Proposals for Improvements in Our School
We have looked at the kinds of waste that is produced in our school, how the waste is
collected and managed by the local authority and also seen how a company has
organised its waste management system. We have discussed the conclusions that we
noted from each part of our research and have tried to use the information and good
ideas. We suggest the following proposals to improve our school’s ability to reduce,
reuse and recycle waste.







We need better classroom bins to help sort the waste for the LA to collect
and take away. We will work to design a suitable bin.
We need a better school policy so that people know exactly what they can
recycle and where to put it.
We need to start collecting other materials properly like electrical goods,
furniture, plastic, food, for the LA to take away. We will work to design a
suitable bin and storage space.
We need diagrams/maps showing location of bins in the school so that they are
easy to find. We will work on diagrams of the school to show everyone where to
put the waste.
Information added to the school website to help everyone sort their waste
correctly; how to recognise it and where to put it. We will work on a design for
an interactive page that can be added to the school website to help everyone
sort and put the waste away correctly.
Presentations to the school to educate the staff and pupils about the benefits
financially and environmentally and keep them involved. We will work on
posters, presentations etc. to inform the school.
Keep everyone informed by advertising on the front screen of all of the
networked computer monitors.
Acknowledgements
Our team at St Luke’s would like to thank the following for their help and support
throughout the G04SET project.
Charles Duke – Mechanical Engineering Associate, GlaxoSmithKline
Erica Kemmet – Waste Minimisation Officer, East Renfrewshire Council
Susanne Pope – Veolia
Dr. Craig Henderson – GlaxoSmithKline
Dr Frank Wayman – Alpheus
David Baird – Design and Technology teacher, St Luke’s High School
And all other staff and pupils at St Luke’s High School, Barrhead