Manage your preferences

The Leeds Beckett website is designed to enable you to manage your own privacy preferences. By clicking on 'Cookies' below you can manage what data the site collects about your browsing. This will only maintain if you are on your own device or using a synched version of your chosen browser. If you are using a shared or public machine without synching your browser then there is no need to change the preferences.

Our site is built with accessibility in mind and we seek to adhere to the WACG AA levels of compliance for digital accessibility. To support that we have provided instructions on managing animations below.

Cookies

Necessary Cookies
Necessary cookies enable you to use all the different parts of leedsbeckett.ac.uk. Without them services that you have asked for cannot be provided. Necessary cookies can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.
Analytical Cookies
Analytical cookies help us understand how people are using our websites, so we can improve them and provide a better user experience. We also sometimes get our approved partner companies to analyse how people are using Leeds Beckett Websites and they may set their own analytical cookies in order to do this.
Marketing Cookies
Marketing cookies allow us to provide you with online adverts that are the most relevant and useful for you.
For more information please view our Privacy Policy

Animations & Interaction

The Leeds Beckett University website occasionally uses animations to page elements and animated gifs to add impact to pages. If you wish to stop them from playing for accessibility purposes or for personal preference then please see the guidance below. Please note that browsers sometimes change how they operate, so please refer to your browser help files to find their latest information.
How do I turn off animations?

Chrome

Chrome users will need to use browser extensions. Animation Policy from Google will help you set your own preferences.

Microsoft Edge

There is currently no way to disable animations within Microsoft Edge. Users of Edge (Chromium) browser can install the Chrome extensions above and use them.

Internet Explorer

To stop animations on a single page you can just press the 'Esc' key. This will stop the animation on that page. If you wish to restart the animations you need to refresh the page. To permanently disable the playing of animated GIF images, open Internet Options > Advanced tab. Under the Multimedia section, uncheck the Play animations in webpage check-box, click Apply and Exit and then restart your computer.

Firefox

Type about:config in Firefox address bar and hit Enter to open Settings. Search for the image.animation_mode flag and change its value from Normal to None. Once you restart Firefox this will disable animations.

Sustainability

Going plastic free - why, how?

How we can reduce plastic in our lives? These revolutionary materials have allowed us to consume goods on a mass scale due to their low cost, durability and relatively light weight. However, now we understand the scale of the negative environmental impacts plastics have in terms of fossil fuel use and marine pollution, reducing our personal plastic consumption should be a sustainable priority we all consider engaging with.

Written By

Dave Prince

Published on 06 Jul 2018

Plastic-free July?

The Plastic Free July Foundation’s mission is to build a global movement that dramatically reduces plastic use and improves recycling. Their vision is a world without plastic waste. Over 2 million people from 159 countries are choosing to be part of our annual Plastic Free July challenge, reducing their consumption of single-use plastics in July and beyond.

Continue reading more about them on the foundation's website.

WHY should we try?

Around 8 million tonnes of plastic is estimated to end up in the oceans every year, at this rate, there will be more plastic particles than fish in the seas by 2050. In other words, we will (or we are already) be consuming fish that feed themselves on micro-plastic. Some plastics are known to contain toxic chemicals that leach out into the marine environment. Micro plastics or plastic residue can be found in the blood and tissue of nearly all of us. Exposure to certain compounds within plastics is associated with cancers, birth defects, impaired immunity, endocrine disruption and other ailments.

Many plastics are not easily biodegradable and if they do degrade fully this process, can take hundreds of years.

HOW do we reduce our plastic use?

The Worldwide Fund for Nature - WWF have a guide to reducing your plastic consumption which focuses mainly on food consumption and the plastic waste it can generate.

Ethical consumer have a good page focusing on removing plastic bathroom waste, something I have done myself without too much drama. Shaving for those of us that do can be tricky. I settled on a mixture of a rechargeable shaver and a safety razor to get rid of the plastic disposable razors I threw away every other day.

If you use menstrual products the Independant has a guide to reduce the plastic waste than can be generated by tampons and pads.

Clothes and particularly washing them is another source of micro plastic waste that, it is easy to generate without even thinking about it. This guides look at some of the o ptions to reduce clothing plastic waste. Essentially try and keep your clothes for longer (fast fashion is not sustainable), by natural fabrics and perhaps consider washing your clothes less often.

Re-suable nappies generate much less plastic waste than disposables especially if they are made form natural fibres. Having done this with two children it seems daunting compared to the ease of diposables but actually it was fine.