We’re starting 2020 off with a tour of schools across Anglesey we service, with educational workshops, to speak to the children about recycling and where their waste goes after it’s left their schools in our trucks.
Gaskells Waste Services has been working with Anglesey County Council for a number of years now after securing their commercial waste contract, which means we service all council buildings, including schools, council offices and libraries. Last year Anglesey became the first county in the UK to be awarded ‘plastic free’ community status by the Surfers Against Sewage, which is a reflection of how passionate people across the island are about sustainability and the future of the planet.
This starts at a very young age, so we’re going into schools to see some of the initiatives in place, meet some of their young ECO champions, and also speak to the children about where their waste goes when it leaves their schools in our trucks.
To kick off our waste roadshow, we enlisted the help of our ‘litterbugs’, Rob from our Welsh division and Claire from our PR department, to deliver our presentation at Ysgol Goronwy Owen, and Ysgol Gymuned Moelfre. Both these schools already have bans on plastic bottles and cans of pop in place and have their own re-usable drinks containers, so the children were very keen to find out how we deal with other waste streams.
We had an incredibly interactive and fun presentation at each school, showing the young people the different types of waste streams, how our trucks work, pictures of our Materials Recycling Facility, and also some facts and figures about waste, for example.. did you know on average, a family in the UK throws away approximately £800 worth of food every single year… also, it would take 25 plastic pop bottles to be recycled into one fleece jacket. There were lots of questions and answers, which was fantastic, and also, the chance to try one of our hard hats on for size, along with safety goggles, went down extremely well.
We met the Environmental Champions at each school, learned how some of them deal with people dropping litter, and also learned about litterpicks and beach cleans they’ve been on, which we’re hoping to join some of them on in the future. It was great to see so many young people so passionate about our planet, so we’d like to say ‘diolch’ to all the young people and staff. Rob and Claire are very much looking forward to visiting the rest of the schools across the island.
Gaskells Waste Services has been a major presence on Anglesey for a number of years now after our expansion into North Wales and we’re extremely proud to operate in such a beautiful part of the world. Wherever you go you’re sure to have seen our distinctive green and yellow bins, along with our special truck featuring the Welsh dragon. We work with a variety of businesses including holiday parks, caravan sites, restaurants, bars, shops, beauty salons, and ice-cream parlours to name but a few.
Gaskells Waste Services also work with the Anglesey Show every year. Along with providing a total waste management solution for the event, we have staff on hand to speak to people about the work we’re doing to increase recycling rates to reduce reliance on landfill, and have also taken our character bins, General Waste and his troops along as a way to engage with young people. We’re also incredibly proud to support a number of organisations on the island including Anglesey Young farmers, Gaerwen under-tens football team, and many more community events.
If you want to know how we can help your business or school increase recycling rates and reduce costs for your waste management services, get in touch for a FREE waste audit.