Member Article

Young eco warriors win top prize for school

A team of wannabe eco warriors from Coxhoe Primary School in County Durham have won a poster competition as part of the Waste Warriors food waste campaign launched by Emerald Biogas, the North East’s only commercial food waste anaerobic digestion facility.

Through the unique education initiative, which has helped schools to understand the growing impact of unwanted food disposal and highlighted the benefits of recycling to produce green energy, the young students were encouraged to create a team logo and thought-provoking poster on reducing food waste.

The winning team of green warriors, aptly titled ‘Racing Recyclers,’ showed off their creativity by designing a poster that reflected everything they had learned during this exciting programme. Key messages were delivered in a colourful and catchy style, including a team recycling poem, drawings of Earth with its increasing landfill and reasons why they felt recycling is so important.

In recognition of their efforts, a cheque for £250 was presented to the school, which will be used to purchase environmental resources including composters, fertiliser and gardening tools which the pupils chose through a voting process.

Alison Wigham, Year Four and Five Class Teacher at Coxhoe Primary School was delighted to receive the cheque on behalf of the school. She said: “The children have loved being waste warriors and are keen to carry on ‘being green’ in school this year. They chose the environmental resources themselves because they wanted something which they could use and they felt would make a difference in school.”

Alexander, aged 9, said: “We hope that the work we started carries on because it’s important to recycle for the environment.”

The poster competition marks the final stage of this innovative Waste Warriors food waste scheme, which saw schools from the region and over 200 pupils taking part in a variety of projects. These included activity workbooks and visits to the state-of-the-art biogas plant in Newton Aycliffe to see how leftover food is digested and turned into green energy.

Jane Armstrong, Regional Sales Manager for Emerald Biogas, was very impressed with the quality of design and ideas that each school put into their posters. She said: “The pupils from all schools have certainly showed the team at Emerald Biogas how much they have learned and understood about the recycling of food, and the standards were very high, making it a tough choice for us.

“We were particularly impressed with the Racing Recyclers team from Coxhoe Primary School and their imaginative use of colour, imagery and design, which really had an impact on us, so very well done to them and the school and we thank everyone for taking part.

“We believe teaching today’s youngsters about how yesterday’s leftovers can become tomorrow’s green energy is vitally important. Following this successful campaign, which has helped to create a new attitude to food waste, we hope to work with more schools across the region.”

John Warren ABP, which collects food waste for its subsidiary company Emerald Biogas, recently secured a contract from food catering specialists Taylor Shaw to collect unwanted food from over 200 schools across County Durham and turn the waste into green energy at the AD facility.

Lynda Walker, General Manager for Taylor Shaw said: “We are delighted that the children were so enthusiastic and involved in the initiative and we look forward to continuing to work with them in the future. We are particularly keen that young people understand where food comes from and how important it is that food waste is turned into a valuable resource.”

Formed in 2009, Emerald Biogas is owned by three partners with a wealth of experience in agriculture and recycling. Antony and Adam Warren are the owners of long established food and animal by products recycling business, John Warren ABP. Together with Ian Bainbridge’s diverse farming, land and resource management Agricore, they will provide the region with a beneficial sustainable resource.

John Warren ABP manages the collection for Emerald Biogas. With over three generations waste management experience and family owned, the company offers a food disposal service at Hamsterley and has progressed into the next generation of food processing.

The funding for the project was made available through the Rural Development Programme for England, which is jointly funded by Defra and the European Union.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kathryn Clapham .