Waste

Wadham's first internal waste audit took place on 2 June 2025. Through the audit, we reviewed our waste practices to help us to understand what action is needed to reduce our waste and improve our efforts to reuse and recycle. The audit provided valuable data to help us target our efforts to reduce our waste and improve our recycling.

This document provides a summary of the findings and recommendations. It is also designed to act as a resource to others thinking about undertaking a waste audit.

Uniquely among the Oxford Colleges, Wadham students cleared their cupboards at the end of the 2024/25 academic year and donated 400kg of edible food to the Oxford City Larder. Check out this video of the large donation being sorted in the West Oxford Community Centre. The programme was able to take and make use of both unopened and opened dry foods.

Our partner organisation, Hearty Earth, collected everything from our Director of Sustainability, Frances Lloyd, and Head of Housekeeping, Helen Wynn.

• We reduce food waste by asking staff and Fellows to book in advance for lunch and to choose one of two sittings so that we can cater accurately.
• We work with the Food Rescuers team of students from Wadham and other colleges. Each day, they collect surplus food from Wadham's kitchen, which they take to those experiencing homelessness in Oxford.
• Unused dry goods go to the Oxford Food Hub.
• Cooked food waste is collected by our partner organisation, Oxford Direct Services. It goes towards producing electricity and liquid fertiliser for Oxfordshire.
• Oil waste is recycled by Oxford Oils. Fats and oils are collected, filtered and cleaned to be used for producing low carbon energy.
• All offices, kitchens, communal spaces and student rooms on the main site have their own food waste caddy, as do the kitchens on the Merifield and Dorothy Wadham sites.
• Uncooked fruit and veg waste from the main kitchen is composted on site and used on the gardens.

We reuse and recycle as much as possible. Some of our initiatives are as follows:

• Our students organise clothes swap sessions, with the option of getting garments mended.
• Our Head Housekeeper leads regular sessions to advise students about correct recycling. Scouts continue this during the course of their work in student accommodation.
• Student 'Staircase Champions' encourage their peers to recycle responsibly.
• We use reusable cups in the student bar and refillable water bottles in all areas of the College.
• The College makes compost in a three-year cycle. The Gardens team use all the organic waste they can to produce it, including lawn mowings, prunings, and waste food from the kitchens.
• Our Works Department refurbishes and reuses materials where possible. When working on our programme of restoration work in the historic Front Quad in 2023, we reused as many of the old slate tiles as possible in the re-roofing project. Where the tiles could not be reused due to deterioration, our specialist project team explored sourcing good quality tiles that have been previously used on other buildings in the local area.
• We repurpose as much of our furniture as we can and refurbish old items when possible. When we need to replace furniture, we buy second-life items rather than new ones. Instead of going to landfill, end-of-life electrical items are collected by local suppliers and stripped for scrap metal and spare parts that can be reused.
• All the College doors with the exception of the one in the main entrance date back to the College's foundation. A restoration contractor has stripped and chemically cleaned them, removing all stains and in some cases paint, that has gathered over the years. From now on, the doors will need to be oiled only every three - five years to keep them in this condition.
• In Staircase 29, some of the window shutters that date back to the 1700s had been nailed shut for some years since curtains became popular. The team has opened them up again and had them restored. The shutters keep the sunlight out and the rooms cool during warm weather. They help to retain heat in the colder months, helping to keep our energy consumption down. The wooden shutters do this more efficiently than double glazing.
• Whenever possible, the Library team buys used books in good condition. They donate withdrawn books to a charity and they reuse boxes from the kitchen to pack withdrawn books. A new Sustainability collection has been established to highlight its importance to students and staff. College members donate used books to the Library's fiction section.
• Where possible, food is delivered to our kitchens in reusable containers.
• The Housekeeping team uses reusable bottles for cleaning solutions instead of single-use plastic.
• We provide a British Heart Foundation donation box for unwanted items from College members. Lost property is retained for 60 days before being passed to the Heart Foundation or to Oxford Food Hub.