Green Gown Awards 2015 – Community Innovation - MMU & Manchester University - Finalist

Zero Waste- ‘Give it, Don’t bin it!’

This is a campaign that encourages students at the end of the year to donate their unwanted items - promoting a reuse ethos and creating lasting partnerships across Manchester’s community.

Manchester is the UK’s most popular student city, with 74,000 student residents.The impact of their annual migration back home is colossal. The partnership built upon this as an opportunity to engage the masses, and realising the potential reach of the campaign, especially in Manchester, the Universities and Manchester City Council formed a strong partnership to work collaboratively to deliver the Zero Waste campaign.

Anything and everything is collected and donated, reused or recycled- including books, clothes, electrical items, food, crockery, furniture, kitchen equipment, duvet and pillows and much more!

The partnership grew exponentially across Manchester to include stakeholders from the private housing sector, local communities and most of the city’s halls of residence providers. From humble beginnings, the campaign has generated 418 tonnes of donated items- raising £412,500 for the British Heart Foundation alone.

Top 3 learnings

1 Make it relevant and about issues that students and staff can connect with

2 Use a partnership approach, learning from and supporting each other

3 Utilise what is currently around you, charities that can support you whilst selling donations within your area, helping to benefit your local community.  

Videos

• Zero Waste- ‘Give it, Don’t bin it!’ (click to hide)