Twycross Zoo Recycles 2.5 Tons Of Waste Each Day

By Kim Riley

Twycross, UK - Twycross Zoo recycles poo!

“Let’s dump landfill and safe guard our country”. This is a very strong statement but this is exactly what Twycross Zoo is trying to accomplish by encouraging sustainability and reducing its input to landfill sites.

Each person in the UK produces, on average, 500kg of waste per year. In the UK we currently recycle less than 25% of this even though the average waste bin contains 80% recyclable or compostable material.

Landfill sites are basically big holes in the ground where your waste is deposited. Putting our waste into landfill sites has a big effect on the environment. They smell, look horrible and can produce liquid waste that seeps out of everything we throw away. Imagine left over milk, paint, juice, meat, oil, bleach and cosmetics all mixed together – yuk.

Alongside the pollution, landfill waste remains for hundreds of years. For example, if you put a plastic bottle in a landfill site it will take over 400 years to break down, a tin will take over 100 years, a plastic bag takes 15 years and a disposable nappy will take over 500 years to break down! In contrast, if you recycle, the same plastic bottle will have a new lease of life as a new bottle or it could be made into clothing (25 plastic bottles can be used to make a fleece jumper). Tin can be recycled into a number of items which will reduce the amount of tin mined from the ground. Also, by reusing your plastic bags you will help to decrease the 17.5 billion that are thrown away every year.

Twycross Zoo’s Conservation Officer, Claire Pipe, took on the difficult task of finding out how much waste the Zoo produced in a year and how the Zoo could recycle it. Over seven hundred tonnes of Zoo poo is produced by the animals every year with an additional 300 tonnes of general waste. Because of the amount of Zoo poo produced, the Zoo has invested in a state-of-the-art in-vessel composting system; a Hotrot 1811. This machine is capable of dealing with the 2 ½ tonnes of Zoo waste produced per day.

The composter works very simply, the poo, shredded paper, straw, sawdust and garden waste etc is fed into the machine which chews, grinds and frequently rotates the waste, heating it up to 75 degrees. The heat destroys all of the pathogens (bacteria and germs) generating sterilized compost within twelve days. This process is extremely fast; normal household compost bins will usually take approximately twelve months to decompose. The Zoo’s clean compost will be used to produce fast growing crops for the animals in the Zoo by spring 2009 and will be used around the Zoo grounds.

Twycross Zoo is an environmental charity who wishes to show respect to the environment. It is aiming to reduce its input to land fill by 90 % by summer 2009. You too can have a massive impact on the amount you throw away by choosing products carefully, reusing products wherever you can and recycling whenever possible. In other words – REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. You can reduce your waste by buying products that come with less packaging or only buy those that come in recyclable packaging (avoid polystyrene for example). You can reuse many plastics such as bottles, bags and even yoghurt pots for freezing portions of sauces etc. If you can’t reduce it or reuse it then try to recycle whatever you can.

Most councils now have a good ‘kerb-side’ recycling scheme to help you recycle your waste but you may find there are things they won’t take, such as Tetra Pak (juice/milk cartons). For this type of waste there are now ‘bring-sites’ in many supermarket car parks. Why not rinse out these cartons and store them in your reusable shopping bags to take with you when you shop? For information on where to recycle your Tetra Pak cartons visit www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk/locator.asp.

For more information and advice on how to ‘make green your waste’ contact us at conservation@twycrosszoo.org

Twycross Zoo East Midland Zoological Society is a registered charity (No 501841) and aims to “care for our world’s animals and environments through conservation, communication and integrity”

Twycross Zoo is the most comprehensive collection of primate species and subspecies in the western world. Twycross is a popular visitor attraction for families and school children welcoming over 500,000 visitors annually. Opening times for visitors are summer 10.00 am – 5.30 pm and winter 10.00 am - 4.00 pm; the Zoo is open 364 days a year only closing Christmas Day.

Twycross has informal and formal education programmes for all sectors of society about wildlife conservation. We incorporate our animals wherever possible into regional and global breeding programmes to aid species conservation. We have developed environmental enrichment programmes to give our animals a fulfilled life, both physically and mentally.

Twycross Zoo is a member of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA), the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) and Wildlife Information Network (WIN). These organisations represent their member collections and promote the values of good zoos and aquariums.