Sustainable Development Spotlight: Women’s Rugby Union change the game on waste
Posted on Thursday 2 October 2025
Funded by the University’s Latte Levy, the York SU Sustainable Development Grant offers funding to projects that aim to address at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals within the York Community. With 17 Goals to choose from, this means the Grant funds a broad range of innovative, inspiring and impactful initiatives.
Sustainable Development Spotlight stories celebrate the work delivered with the help of the Grant and interview successful applicants to find out more about how they used the Grant funding to realise their ambitions and have a real impact in the York community.
In this article, York SU chats to the Women's Rugby Union about how they used the grant to reduce the amount of waste they produce as a club.
Tell us a bit about how you are using the Sustainable Development Grant to improve the sustainability of the Women’s Rugby Union team.
We’ve used the grant to purchase two cool boxes and 10 reusable ice packs. We, as a club, sustain a lot of small injuries that get treated with disposable ice packs. These disposable ones are very useful and convenient but are incredibly wasteful as they are completely unable to be recycled and often get abandoned on the side of the 22 acres after an injury - posing all the regular risks involved with litter.
As a club we wanted to both reduce our spending and start reducing the waste we output, so we started to look at how we could do both of these things. Last season we purchased over 100 single-use ice packs which are not only expensive but very wasteful. The grant has allowed us to purchase a more sustainable option and a way that we can keep them cool on game days. It’s something that we would have been unlikely to be able to do without the extra funding given by the grant.
Do you have any advice for other student groups looking to become more sustainable?
Think about what you have already and how you can make it functional again/continue to use it. If you have equipment that is broken, can you find someone who knows how to fix it - a repair cafe? Someone with a sewing machine? Could you enlist the help of another society? If your kit is still whole and working, do you really need to buy a new set? Often sustainable options are the most financially viable as they mean not having to buy anything new!
Do you have any advice to other students applying to the Sustainable Development Grant?
Just go for it! I wasn’t sure whether my idea was what the grant was intended for so I contacted them and they let me know whether or not it would likely be accepted. Chances are, your idea is sensible and exactly what they want to fund - and if it isn’t then you’re in the right place to find some help to refine it. Nothing bad will come out of you giving it a go and applying!
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If you’ve been inspired by Women’s Rugby Union’s Sustainable Development Grant Project, you can find out more about applying for your own funding.