Dig this: Pupils from St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Poole enjoy their visit to Eco’s Parley site with class teacher Susy Ngadeu (left) and Eco’s Charlotte Haswell (right).
Pupils from a Poole school saw for themselves how their garden waste is turned into top quality compost when they visited a Dorset organics recycling firm.
The Year 4 pupils, aged eight to nine years, from St Mary’s Catholic Primary School had a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of Eco Sustainable Solutions’ site at Parley.
Among the activities witnessed were the processes used for recycling wood, garden waste and soil.
Eco annually processes 150,000 tonnes of material at Parley with end products including turf, enriched topsoil, compost and woodchip.
Class teacher Susy Ngadeu said the children had been “fascinated” by the visit.
“They’re working on the environmental ‘footprint’ resulting from day-to-day living so it’s just perfect to see a facility such as this. They’ve loved the visit and Eco have been fantastic,” she added.
Charlotte Haswell, Eco’s Business Account Handler, said it was important that schoolchildren had a full understanding of the importance of recycling.
She added: “We receive several school visits during the year and the feedback is always very good.
“We hope that allowing the children to see first-hand what happens to their garden waste provides a very powerful and positive impression when educating them on the environment and the benefits of recycling.”
Founded in 1993, Eco employs 46 people and has an annual turnover of £11 million.
The company owns and operates the UK’s leading purpose-built site for organics recycling and renewable energy generation, currently processing 250,000 tonnes of organic material each year across four facilities
