Our wonderful estates team are always working hard behind the scenes to ensure our students are studying in a safe and pleasant environment and looking after our historical buildings so they last for many generations to come. A large part of their work is the sustainability of how the buildings and school site are used.  

We’ve been working closely with Kelly, our Suez representative, to understand how we can be more sustainable with our waste disposal. Our dry mixed recycling goes to a large sorting facility in Bristol, where it is sorted into different categories, baled and sent to be reused into similar products. Our food waste can either be mixed with garden waste and allowed to mature for 5 months and is then sold on as soil conditioner, or it’s put into an anaerobic digester where microorganisms break down the food, creating methane. This is burned to create electricity or used as a nutrient-rich fertiliser for local farms. Our general waste goes into an incinerator burning at around 1000 degrees Celsius. The heat from this generates electricity which goes to power local homes and businesses. The gas is passed through filters before being released into the atmosphere. Bottom ash from the base of the incinerator is filtered and processed to be used in the construction industry. Zero percent of the waste created at Reading School goes into landfill.  

To aid in the separation of our waste, we have general waste and dry mixed recycling bins in all classrooms and social spaces such as the LRC. Common areas such as the LRC, staff room, staff offices and LRC also have food waste bins. Finally, a ‘trio of bins’ have been set up at the crossroads, basketball courts, outside the LRC and outside the refectory so students eating packed lunches and grab and go meals can recycle their food waste, general waste and cans. By having the right bins in the right places, we hope to increase our recycling and sort our waste appropriately.  

The school is proud to buy its energy from British Gas on their 100% renewables tariff. This means that all the energy used comes from renewable sources, such as solar panels, wind power and hydroelectric power. As these energy sources do not release greenhouse gases, they are environmentally sustainable. We must still be mindful of our energy use and reduce our demand on these valuable resources for the economic sustainability of the school. The school also has solar panels on top of the Phillip Mitchell Science Centre which contribute to the energy demand from the science centre reducing our energy demand from the grid.  

The estates team have been changing our lights over to LEDs, which use less energy, and looking into motion sensor lighting in the corridor areas. This should mean the lights are not on when lessons are scheduled, reducing our demand on energy supplies. They have also been focusing on our heating over the winter months. New insulation has been installed on most buildings, keeping the heat trapped in the classrooms where its needed most, meaning we need to heat the classrooms, reducing our energy consumption. We are also exploring the new Reading Heat Network for the future with the aim of removing our use of natural gas.  

We have also been investigating the feasibility of installing EV charging points on the school site. With an increase in staff and visitors having electric cars, this offers a convenient location to charge their cars, reducing pressure on petrol resources.  

Finally, our cleaning products used around the school site are certified as environmentally friendly and our cleaning staff use microfibre clothes which can be washed and reused. We have recently switched to a new supplier of loo roll, hand soap and hand towels in all the bathrooms! Metsä sources its products in Finland, where it is law that for every tree cut down, it must be replaced with 4 saplings, resulting in over 50 million trees being planted every year. This is a valuable carbon sink once the trees mature. They also manufacture their products using renewable energy.