This summer the University of Warwick has continued its long running project RAWKUS across four separate events. RAWKUS is an initiative run by the Energy and Sustainability Team in partnership with Waste and Recycling Team, Accommodation, Warwick Climate Reality Campus Corps Society and local charities and volunteers to collect surplus food and kitchenware from across the halls of residence as students move out at different times of the year.

This year over six tonnes of food and kitchenware collected by 59 volunteers were donated to Coventry Foodbank, Carriers of Hope and Coventry City Mission.

Energy and Sustainability also worked collaboratively with Carriers of Hope for item to be taken away, washed and returned for the Pay As You Feel Market. This is an opportunity during Arrivals Weekend and Welcome Week for students to purchase items they still needed for their kitchens without costing too much and also reduce their own climate footprint.

Whilst the event was supposed to run for six days (or until we ran out of stock), we found that incoming students loved the idea and due to its popularity the even closed after just two days having raised £3,522 for Carriers of Hope. Representing the local charity, Andrew Sayers said 'One of our charity objectives is to recycle and reuse household items. The team at Warwick support us to not only achieve this, but also helped us to raise over £3,000 for much needed funds as well. Thank you RAWKUS.'.

We continue to educate students on ways to reduce food waste and end of term surplus; as well as providing regular opportunities for swapping unwanted items through Swap Shop and POP! Swap, and repairing items via the reStore project.

We are always looking for people to support the RAWKUS collections and other events, and you can sign up to hear more about future volunteering opportunities via the RAWKUS pages on our website or by following @WarwickUniSust on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.