Take part in The Big Plastic Count

Join thousands of households, schools, community groups and businesses taking part in this year’s The Big Plastic Count from 11-17 March and help tackle the scourge of plastic pollution.

Nearly 100 billion pieces of plastic packaging are thrown away by UK households every year, and just 12% is recycled in the UK. The Big Plastic Count is trying to tackle this issue by encouraging everyone to count their plastic for one week and use the data as evidence to lobby the government to act and phase out plastic pollution for good.

All you need to do is sign up and you will receive a tally sheet to make it quick and easy for you to record all the different types of plastic packaging waste you use, or alternatively you can tally online.

How to take part?

Taking part in The Big Plastic Count is really easy. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Register: Sign up to The Big Plastic Count and get your free counting pack (digital or via post) which includes everything you need to take part
2. Get Counting: Count all your plastic waste from 11-17 March
3. Submit Results: Submit your data via our website by 31 March
4. Get Your Footprint: Discover your plastic footprint and use the results to make a difference!

Find out more – How to take part | The Big Plastic Count

This means reducing packaging, cutting down paper use, reducing and recycling food waste, inspiring staff and students to think carefully about the waste produced on campus, and reusing or recycling everything we can.

As part of this, we are working with our waste and recycling contractor to try to increase the number of materials we can recycle. We are conscious of the high use of single-use plastics on campus and acknowledge that we must do more to bring this down. We are developing a policy on single-use plastics in collaboration with the campus hospitality teams and welcome any comments or ideas from staff.

You may have noticed that what you can recycle at the University is different to what you can recycle at home and varies depending on where you live.

The university has invested heavily in waste and recycling facilities which are standardised across the entire university. The bins are located in pairs in student facing and public areas (one recycling and one waste bin), making the choice to recycle just as easy as throwing something away.

Contact our Sustainability team via sustainability@brighton.ac.uk.