Coinciding with National Recycling Week’, we are extending our recycling facilities to encourage even more visitors to our zoological park to recycle their left over food and drink packaging.

During 2008 we composted or recycled an impressive 88% of our waste. The expansion of the recycling programme will now include an even greater amount of guest picnic packaging waste. Visitors will now find various locations throughout our 140 acres of beautiful Hampshire parkland to dispose of left over waste, including plastic bottles, cans and paper – making it easier than ever before for everyone to do their bit.

Organised by Recycle Now, which promotes more sustainable ways of living, National Recycling Week aims to encourage all of us to generate less waste and recycle more.

We estimate that around 200,000 drinks from plastic bottles are consumed by visitors to our zoological park every year. Every bottle recycled saves enough energy to light a 60w light bulb for three hours, which equates to 35,000kWh saved, or 15 tonnes of carbon emissions avoided. As well as reducing carbon footprints, plastic bottles can be recycled into many different products, from clothing like fleece jackets to commercial fascias.

Marwell Wildlife Sustainability Manager,Duncan East said: “As well as increasing the amount of plastic and paper we recycle, we also hope to escalate the amount of recycled glass (bottles) to six tonnes this year. Recycled glass products can be made into many different products including new bottles and road surfacing. By simply placing an empty bottle into one of our many recycling bins, visitors can really make a big difference to the amount of energy saved and also help create new products.”

Last year, we were highly commended as joint best in the Medium Business Award category in the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Sustainable Business Awards 2008. We also received the Winchester City Council Rural Business of the Year Award. The award recognised our achievement of balancing the need to be economically viable with a responsibility to the local environment and community. We also won the Winchester City Council Award for Green Innovation, which was awarded in recognition of our commitment to improve environmental performance whilst minimising our environmental impact.

26th June 2009