YOUNGSTERS DISCOVER THE VALUE OF RUBBISH AS THEY OFFICIALLY OPEN NEW VISITORS CENTRE AT ENERGY FROM WASTE FACILITY
Pupils from a Huddersfield school were given the honour of officially opening a new visitor centre at a SITA UK's energy from waste facility and were even treated to a turn in the crane operator's chair.
Children from Lindley Junior School were invited to the town centre based facility today (Wednesday 1 July) for the unveiling of the education centre, which tells the story of how non-recycled waste in Kirklees is disposed of.
Cllr David Sheard, Cabinet Member for Transport and the Environment welcomed the children to the centre and was joined by Kirklees Council's recycling mascot, Cyril the Squirrel.
Cllr Sheard said: "I am delighted to join children from Lindley Junior School in opening SITA UK's visitors centre at Kirklees. The centre will hopefully help raise awareness of our environment and in particular how we can all help to protect it, by reducing, re-using and recycling our waste."
The children took part in a number of fun recycling activities which included sorting aluminium and steel cans and identifying recyclable waste from rubbish to win as many points as possible. This was followed by a tour of the plant, which included watching the household waste being brought into the tipping hall and then sent to the furnace.
The winning team of year four students - the Recycling Roaders - Nicky Barrow, Daniel Brennan, Elliott Wood, William Burley and Sam Helman, cut the ribbon to officially open the centre.
Lindley Junior school teacher, Miss Caroline Thomas, joined the pupils on their visit.
She said: "It has been so great for the children to be involved. We learn about recycling and the need to protect the environment in school, but this has enabled the children to do practical work and see for themselves how it all works. The visit has been very interesting. I'm sure we will all remember it for a long time."
Glennys Robinson, SITA UK regional manager, said: "We are delighted that Lindley Junior School has played such a major role in the opening of this visitor centre. We felt it was important that members of the local community are involved in what we are doing, and this centre is very much about helping to educate children and the wider community in Huddersfield about waste disposal."
Over 100,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste is sent to the energy-from-waste facility every year from homes and businesses across Kirklees. The energy from waste process generates enough heat and light from this for the National Grid to serve 15,000 homes.
In addition to this, over 20,000 tonnes of recyclable materials a year collected from homes across Kirklees are recycled on site at the Materials Recycling Facility next door to the EfW facility. For more information, go to www.sita.co.uk