Thomas’ design promotes food waste recycling

A Cwmfelin schoolboy will see his own artwork emblazoned on Bridgend County Borough recycling trucks this summer to help promote food waste recycling.

Seven-year-old Thomas Lewis came up with the winning poster design in the Bridgend Food Recycling Mission – a campaign launched in January to teach children how their food waste is recycled into electricity.

His artwork will now be seen on recycling trucks across the county borough to help spread the benefits of food recycling far and wide.

Delivered by Recycle for Wales, in partnership with Bridgend County Borough Council, Wastebuster and Eco-Schools, the Bridgend Food Recycling Mission helped key stage 2 students discover how the county’s recycled food waste is treated at the Severn Trent Green Power anaerobic digestion plant in Stormy Down to create electricity to power local homes, schools and tourist attractions.

Thirty nine local primary schools registered to take part in the food waste mission, meaning that over 3,300 pupils learnt what happens to the food scraps, veg peelings, tea bags and other food waste that their families recycle at home.

All of the children taking part were invited to design posters and compile food diaries to record the unavoidable food waste that their family generated over a week, before seeing how much energy that waste could produce by using an online calculator called the ‘Electrogenerator’.

As well as winning the prize of seeing his own artwork on local recycling trucks, Thomas also won an exclusive tour of the Severn Trent Green Power recycling plant for his Cwmfelin Primary School classmates so that they could see the food recycling process in action.

We enjoyed teaming up with Recycle for Wales on this campaign to explain the benefits of being green with our next generation of recyclers, and the message will now hit the streets thanks to Thomas’ design adorning the recycling trucks.

An impressive 75 per cent of local residents recycle their food waste, and last year they recycled enough food to power a whole school for four years! But there’s always room for improvement so please do the right thing with your waste and recycle as much as you possibly can.

Councillor Hywel Williams, Bridgend County Borough Council’s Deputy Leader

It’s simple to recycle your food waste in Bridgend County Borough. Use one of the green bags to line your small brown kitchen caddy and put your food waste in it. When it’s full, tie the bag up and put it in your bigger food recycling caddy outside ready for your weekly collection. Remember that the outside caddy comes with a lockable handle to keep out smells and pests.

Hannah Blythyn, Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government said: “I am always impressed by the enthusiasm our school pupils have for the environment as well as the creativity it inspires in them. Well done to all the students who took part and a big congratulations to Thomas Lewis at Cwmfelin Primary School. I’m looking forward to seeing the new-look recycling vehicles on the streets of Bridgend.”

Caroline Hutchinson, Recycle for Wales Campaign Manager, said: “We were thrilled with the great response from schools across the county to the Bridgend Food Recycling Mission. Thank you to all the schools and their teachers who delivered the lessons, and to all the pupils who designed posters – there were so many spectacularly-creative entries. We hope the campaign has inspired pupils, as well as parents, guardians and teachers, to keep putting their food waste in their caddies so that we can continue to create more sustainable energy for Bridgend.”

To find out more about recycling in Bridgend County Borough please visit the Recycle for Bridgend website.