FFF survey results

Survey participants.
In total there were 176 participants who responded to the survey as of 16th April 2021, with one person
declining to participate in the research study.
Responses were collected from a wide range of Halls of Residence (Figure 1.) as well as age ranges,
courses and genders. Only four individuals identified that their Halls of Residence currently supplies a food
waste separation system (one from Francis Drake, Mary Newman, Robins and Radnor). Each participant
highly recommended their service (three stated 5/5; one stated 4/5), however there appeared to be a lack
of knowledge from these individuals, two thinking that food waste currently goes to landfill and two others
thinking it goes for composting. It is unclear whether these individuals have set up their own food waste
separation that they take for composting or if they have confused food waste separation with another
service.
The previously mentioned 5 people have been removed from the following analysis to focus only on
individuals who do not currently have a separated food waste disposal system in place.

Figure 1. Student responses to “Which student Halls of Residence are/were you a part of?”

Demand for a food waste separation system

Students were asked to rank the following options for the question “Which of the following do you believe is
a necessary action to help students tackle the climate crisis?”. Table one shows the results for the number
one (most important) answer, this demonstrates that over 50% of students believe that having a food waste
disposal system would have the greatest effect against climate change.
Table 1. Analysis of Q16: Which of the following do you believe is a necessary action to help
students tackle the climate crisis? (Please place in order of importance with 1 being most
important and 5 being of least import. This table represents the options individuals chose as
their most important option. Percentage is given to two decimal places.

Participants who selected this option as

their most important action
Option Total number Percentage (%)
Having a zero-waste shop on campus 46 26.90
Having a food waste disposal system in student 87 50.88
accommodation
Reduced meat options in campus cafeterias 10 5.85
No disposable cups on campus 18 10.53
Access to a campus-wide bike rental system, such as 15 8.77
YoBike
Of the 171 responders for analysis who’s halls did not have a food waste separation and disposal system,
88% of these said they were disappointed with this with (10.5% indifferent; 1.7% not disappointed; 87.7%
disappointed).
When asked to rate on a scale of 1-5 how much would they personally value waste separation systems in
Halls of Residence (5 being highly valued and 1 being not valued at all), recycling separation and food
waste separation got mean scores of 4.8 and 4.6 (standard deviations of 0.5 and 0.7) respectively, with the
most common answer for each being 5, highly valued. This shows that Food waste separation is
considered as important as recycling separation when it comes to student’s waste.
154 people (>90%) currently use the recycling systems already in place for items such as cardboard, cans
and glass with a further 14 (8%) unable to participate because they are not aware of, or their halls do not
provide recycling separation, only 3 people indicated that they do not use current recycling systems in
place (<2%). This shows willingness and commitment to using waste separation systems already in place.
These statistics confirm that students not only believe separating food waste is important and they are
willing to use recycling and separation systems, but they are also disappointed in Halls of Residence
management for not providing such systems already.

Expectations for a food waste separation system

In terms of setting up a food waste disposal and collection system, there is some divide on how it should be
provided. For example, 78 individuals (46%%) are willing to pay a small fee annually (41 people between
£5-10; 23 people between £10-15; and 14 people between £15-20), the remaining 76 would not be willing
to pay any amount for the following reasons:

 5 stated “I would not be willing to pay, because I am indifferent”.

 71 stated “I would not be willing to pay, because this service should be provided by the university”.
Once a food waste caddy is available within Halls of Residence, 92% of individuals stated that they would
be happy to empty their own food waste caddy to a communal waste collection bin outside of their halls of
residence however the majority identified that they would need this to be clean, safe, and easily accessible
(Figure 2). The remaining 8% would like it to be emptied by someone else, for example a communal
cleaner. Should cleaners be responsible for removal of a food waste caddy, students felt it would need to
be removed more than once weekly (Figure 3) with the most common answer being every other day. This
could be due to the size of caddy bins in relation to the number of students in each flat.

Fig 2. Would you be willing to take your food waste caddy to a communal waste collection bin
outside of your Halls of Residence?
Figure 3.

Barriers
Concerns that will need to be overcome to make food waste separation a success include education as to
what can be put in a food waste caddy, responses are shown in figure 3 to illustrate current knowledge.
This could be adjusted by using informative posters that accompany a food waste caddy, we believe one in
each flat would work best. Q14
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Figure 4. Question 14: Which of these items would you expect to go in a food waste bin? (Select all that
apply)
The three biggest worries raised by students in the survey were: housemates will not assist with the
removal of the waste to a communal bin, it will smell bad, and it will attract pests. We believe that by
ensuring bins are removed regularly and that the communal bin area is kept clean and well maintained (e.g.
lids attached) especially during summer months that these issues could be easily overcome.
Other analysis
At an out of term time address 135 people have access to food composting already (36 do not), indicating
that these indiviuals will already have the knowledge and routine to use a food waste seperation system.
A large percentage of participants would benefit from educational resources:
“currently, where do you think your food waste goes”

 Anaerobic digestor: 10
 Compost: 35
 Incinerator:12
 Landfill: 114
“would you like to know more about where your food waste goes”

 Indifferent: 30
 No: 4
 Yes: 137

What barriers do you think there will be in using the caddy system for food waste? (Select all that apply.)

 Not generating enough food waste 

 It will smell bad 
 Not wanting to take it out personally 
 Having sole responsibility 
 My housemates not helping to take it out 
 It does not make that big of a difference to climate change 
 It will attract pests 
 Other (free text) 

Results show most students concerned with odour, attracting pests and being the only person emptying the
caddy.

Other responses summarised:

- taking out the food waste / broken lifts and using stairs.
- larger flats having significantly more food waste to move around.
- wanting communal bins inside to prevent pests and improve accessibility.
- concerns that some may put wrong items in the caddies, emphasis on education needed