Big summer clear-up as students drop everything

With another end to the academic year Bristol-based BNS Management Services are standing by for another major clear-up operation as the city's students drop everything and head home for the summer.

 

BNS runs more than 150 apartment blocks across Bristol - many of them providing student accommodation especially in and around Clifton.

 

 Managing Director Andrew Simmonds said they had set up special waste collection squads to deal with the mountain of equipment, clothing and goods departing students leave behind.

 

He said: "We were staggered by the amount of material left outside student apartments blocking hallways or dumped in gardens and were determined to have a plan in place to cope with the increase this time around."

 

The company, which has built up a portfolio of accommodation across Bristol and the West during the last six years, has obtained a specialist waste handling licence to speed up the disposal process.

 

Andrew Simmonds said it was astonishing what students left behind.

 

"With so many students from overseas they clearly aren't going to be enthusiastic about flying home with the bulky electrical items or bicycles they have been using for the past three years.

 

"Most of this gets dumped when they graduate, leaving us with a major headache as we prepare accommodation blocks for next term."

 

As well as clothes, bikes and printers, items of furniture including sofas are frequently jettisoned as students come to the end of their courses or simply head home for the summer.

 

Bristol has around 3,000 apartment blocks of which just 25 per cent are managed by agents.

 

"We are having to make special provision for the sheer scale of this problem. Students don't seem to think twice about dumping perfectly useable equipment -   ideally we would look at options for recycling but current legislation makes salvaging goods very problematical, not to mention very expensive for us."

 

Based in Downend, Bristol, Andrew Simmonds said the firm's reputation for close local connections, rapid response times and reliability had been put to the test by the volume of waste left at and around its managed blocks last year.

 

"This term we have gone to the lengths of obtaining special licences in order to be able to promptly deal with the problem."