Milton Keynes College Group has declared war on single-use plastic bottles, thanks to a new scheme to give away 600 reusable ones to staff and students.  They’re being donated by waste management company, SUEZ, in an attempt to cut out a shocking amount of waste.  What’s more, the refillable bottles are themselves, all made from recycled plastic. 

College Group Sustainability Lead, Lauren Gallyot, says, “We’re calling it our Refill Campaign and we’re encouraging everyone across our campuses to use their refillable bottles, so we can dramatically cut the amount of plastic we’re throwing away.  Last year we sold 29,832 plastic water bottles at our Chaffron Way and Bletchley campuses.  If you laid them all end-to-end, they’d stretch from our Chaffron Way campus to the one at Bletchley and half-way back again.  That has to stop.” 

Plastic bottles don’t break down over time.  It’s reckoned they each would take 450 years to disappear according to the WWF, and then only to become tiny particles of microplastics like those that already fill our land, air and seas.  Across the country, 16 million plastic bottles don’t get recycled and globally, 80% end up in landfill (source, theecoexperts.co.uk).  Each student or staff member at the College who uses their new bottle instead of throwaway ones could save more than 90kg of carbon dioxide each year (source, theecoexperts.co.uk), not to mention the 90 pence a time the bottled water costs. 

The student-facing campaign was launched at student Welcome events at both the Chaffron Way and Bletchley campuses where Karen Thompson from SUEZ came along to help speak to students about the campaign and hand out water bottles alongside Lauren Gallyot and students from the College’s sustainability action group. 

Accompanying the team at the Welcome event was Clive the hermit crab, an installation created in a collaboration between the College’s Art and Public Services learners. Clive was created out of used plastic bottles and other recyclable materials, to demonstrate the impact of single use plastics on the environment. 

The Refill campaign was inspired by the winning idea at the College Group’s Green Futures competition, where students Katherine Watkiss and Jonathan McTeer presented their proposals for a recycling scheme on campus.   The students, along with others from the College’s student action group on sustainability, then worked with Lauren Gallyot to develop their idea into the Refill campaign.  

Jonathan McTeer, one of the winning students, said: “As a student climate action group, we were shocked by how much plastic waste we produced as a college. Together, we discussed the different ways we could promote using refillable bottles. We’re pleased this campaign is now being launched for new and returning students. It’s important that we use this opportunity as the inspiration for more changes to come.”   

Peter Marshall, Contract Manager at SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, said, “Creating a more sustainable future is really important to us and part of our core commitments in Milton Keynes, helping to make the city region cleaner and greener. We are proud to support the communities across the city region through partnerships like the refill scheme at MK College as we believe these efforts play a key role in building a more sustainable future for all and encourage positive change.”  

Lauren says, “We’re very grateful to Suez for their support and look forward to reporting a significant drop in plastic waste in twelve months’ time.  This is just one of many initiatives we’re looking at to make the College a more sustainable place as part of our Climate Action Plan, but they only work because the students and staff recognise the need and are enthusiastic for change.” 

 To find out more about our Climate Action Plan and work on sustainability, visit Sustainability – MK College