Bath students who are leaving their homes in the city at the end of the academic year are being encouraged to recycle any unwanted items to raise funds for the British Heart Foundation.
Ghika Savva (SCP Manager) and Councillor Paul May | Photo © B&NES Council
Bright red donation banks have been installed at temporary sites across the city and will remain in place until the end of July for donations of clothes, books, DVDs, CDs and bric-a-brac.
The donations provide stock for BHF’s network of shops and are resold to help fund life-saving research into heart and circulatory diseases.
The donation drive is part of the annual Student Move Out Campaign, an initiative led by the Student Community Partnership (SCP) that will also see officers from Bath & North East Somerset Council’s waste team joining SCP, university and student volunteers knocking on doors to give advice to students on recycling using the regular waste collection boxes.
Councillor Paul May, cabinet member for Children’s Services, said: “Last year the campaign was a great success; we collected more than 5,000 bags of donations to support the British Heart Foundation in their work providing defibrillators and CPR training for local organisations.”
The SCP is a partnership of the University of Bath, Bath Spa University, Bath College and their students’ unions, with Norland College and the council.
SCP’s manager Ghika Savva said: “Last year the items left in the temporary donation banks yielded £41,790 worth of donations and diverted 23.8 tonnes of items from disposal.
“Two additional sites for Bath College brought in a further 126 bags of donations worth up to £1,764.
“In 2023 the total Bath campaign raised over £81,186 for BHF, diverting 46 tonnes of material for reuse and recycling.”
Tim Reeves, the charity’s university account executive, said: “The British Heart Foundation is proud to work side by side with Bath Student Community Partnership and Bath & North East Somerset Council.
“Donations given by both students and staff have done so much to help us fight the challenge of heart and circulatory diseases through life changing research.”
The donation banks are at:
- Dartmouth Avenue, Southdown.
- West Avenue, Westmoreland.
- Canterbury Road, Oldfield Park
- Oldfield Lane, Oldfield Park.
- Bridge Road, Southdown.
- Widcombe Baptist Church, Widcombe & Lyncombe.
- Beechen Cliff Villas, Widcombe & Lyncombe (alongside the on-street grit bin).
- Victoria Road, Westmoreland.
- Twerton High Street.
- Holloway, Widcombe & Lyncombe (at the bottom of the steps to Carlton Walk).
The charity does not take donations of electrical items, kitchen equipment, furniture, duvets and pillows.
