UEA recognised nationally for campaign that has turned waste into £400,000 of charitable donations
By: Communications
L-R: Harry Selby, Tom Bohan, Glen Freeman, Richard Gray, Steve Woodcraft, Suzanne Barber, Simon Hayward, Keith Pottle, Kofi Owusu, Daniel Thurtell, Derek Tuttle (Photo credit: Dawn Flatman)
A campaign which has raised nearly £400,000 and diverted 225 tonnes of waste from landfill, has been recognised by a national charity.
‘Pack for Good’ has been run across the University of East Anglia’s (UEA’s) campus since 2014, and involves donating preloved clothing items from students and the local community to the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
Since 2014, £396,669 has been raised by the ‘Pack for Good’ campaign at UEA. These donations have diverted 226.6 tonnes from landfill and the equivalent of 1,337,827kg of CO2 emissions. For some context, that’s the equivalent weight of 32 African male elephants in waste.
More than £50,000 has been raised by UEA for the British Heart Foundation this year alone, with 3,623 bags donated and the equivalent of 28.9 tonnes of waste diverted from landfill.
UEA was a finalist in the British Heart Foundation’s national Heart Hero Awards, which rewards people, organisations and initiatives working to make a difference to help fulfil the charity’s vision of a world free of heart and circulatory diseases.
Tom Bohan, Waste and Recycling Manager at UEA, said: “We’re absolutely delighted for our hard work to have paid off by being nominated for the Charity Partner award, after so many years of running the campaign on our campus alongside our students.
“I’m proud we can help make a difference with BHF, support pop-up shops on campus and be an ambassador for other university partners – and most of all I’m proud of the team for the hard work they’ve put in, the reduction in waste they’ve contributed to and the huge amount of money they’ve raised.”
The University has also contributed by running pop-up shops, which have helped to raise a further £15,000 in revenue for the BHF while also encouraging students to be more frugal and sustainable. These pop-up shops have been a great opportunity to support UEA's sustainable goals through encouraging the local community to reuse, reduce and recycle. It also promotes opportunities for students to volunteer at the local BHF shops and stores which benefit the local community.
The BHF funds around £100 million of medical research every year related to heart and circulatory diseases and their causes. They also run influencing work that aims to help shape public policy and raise awareness for cardiovascular disease and conditions like vascular dementia and diabetes.
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