Excluding years affected by COVID-19, this is the lowest amount on record.
Highlights from the data include:
- Residential waste reduced by 45.745% from 600.46 tonnes in 23/34 to 554.72 tonnes in 24/25.
- General waste tonnage decreased by 51% from 784 tonnes in 23/24 to 733 tonnes in 24/25. We also saw food waste tonnage increase, which suggests the recent legislation (Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2025) has been helpful in encouraging staff and students to use food waste bins, taking this stream out of general waste.
- The on-site recycling rate increased from 49% to 51%.
- Paper recycling tonnage dropped by 14% which suggests more considered printing habits across campus. This reduction aligns with the great work done by the Creative and Print team, who have seen a 9% decrease in campus printing totals.
- Wood recycling dropped by 22.53 tonnes from 64.24 tonnes in 23/24 to 41.71 tonnes in 24/25. This reduction in wood recycling could be explained by the works done to reduce furniture going to waste by the Furniture and Domestic Services (FADS) team. In 24/25, the FADS team donated over 660 pieces of furniture to local charities and organisations such as Shepshed Community Centre, East Lake Secondary School and Loughborough Wellbeing Centre.
- Our diversion from landfill rate in 24/25 was 99.69%, an increase of 5.35% from 23/24. This demonstrates our commitment to the waste hierarchy, ensuring the most sustainable waste management with only our non-EFW wastes (bulky materials) going to landfill.
Whilst this reduction in waste is positive, we must continue to monitor and reduce our total waste whilst increasing our recycling rate. In a recent waste audit of general waste bags, we found that on average, 18% of each bag contained materials that could have been recycled.
Waste at our London campus also decreased by about 10% from the previous year. The introduction of food waste segregation in April 2025 has supported the rise in the campus’s recycling rate.
In the upcoming academic year, we will continue to drive improvements by:
- Improving the quality of our recycling by reducing contamination through continual awareness spreading.
- Further reduce the amount of waste we produce by adopting sustainable procurement practices and promoting reuse through campaigns such as WARP-it, Kit Catalogue, Give ‘n’ Go, and our British Heart Foundation banks on campus. Not only does reducing the number of items we dispose of save us money on waste costs, but it also helps us reduce our procurement spend and, as such, our carbon footprint.
- Continue improving food waste segregation across campus in line with the Simpler Recycling (2025) regulations.
Find out more information about waste segregation at the University.
If you have any queries, please email waste@lboro.ac.uk.