Students are helping to tackle Britain’s looming landfill crisis by creating a recycling bin fit for the year 2020.
The University of Lincoln’s School of Engineering has partnered with Louth-based technical plastics recycler and compounder, Luxus, for the ‘Design4Recycling’ competition.
The students will create concepts for a recycling bin to help the plastics and waste industries improve recycling rates. They will need to consider waste needs for domestic use and recycling initiatives – such as waste collections for offices, schools, cafes, leisure centres and public buildings.
Jonathan Lawrence, Professor of Laser Materials Processing at the University of Lincoln, said: “We’re really pleased to collaborate with Luxus on this project, particularly since it poses a true industry issue to challenge our students. As we believe that our engineering degrees create ‘industry ready’ graduates – our approach essentially cuts down on the amount of graduate training that an employer would need to provide. This competition fits this purpose perfectly, giving our students tremendous breadth and depth of knowledge together with our other expert industry collaborators.”
Luxus wants students to think sustainably at the beginning of their design projects, by considering the materials they use, safety, ergonomics and ease of deconstruction at ‘end of life’. They will also need to anticipate the need for greater separation of waste as we will inevitably recycle increasingly diverse waste streams in the future.
Peter Atterby, Managing Director at Luxus, said: “We believe that it’s important for industry and universities to work closely together, giving students ‘real world’ design problems to solve; encouraging them to think sustainably and at the same time creating stronger relationships. We approached the University of Lincoln as it’s our intention to work closely with local educational institutions that train the best and brightest future engineers to get them interested in the issues impacting on our industry.”
The students’ designs will be judged in the summer term and the winner will receive a laptop from Luxus to help support their future studies.
Story credits:
Marie Daniels – PR Officer
E-mail: mdaniels@lincoln.ac.uk
Telephone: 01522 886244