We try to ensure that as much of our waste is recycled as possible. All our waste cardboard, paper, metal, plastic and wood is taken away for recycling. We try to use as little paper as we can in our office and plan to make this as paperless as possible.
The Nursery’s food waste is taken away by a company called Refood Ltd (www.refood.co.uk) which then transports it to a state of the art facility in Doncaster where it is used to make gas and fertilizer. The gas is then burnt to make electricity which is fed into the national electricity grid.
The Nursery now has its own rainwater harvesting system, using a five thousand litre water tank buried under the Nursery outdoor learning area and a one thousand litre water tank located in the Nursery roof space. These allow us to capture and store rainwater from the roof and then use it to flush our toilets and fill our washing machines. It also allows us to carry on operating should there ever be a temporary break in our water supply.
We plan in the future to recycle much more and install a large number of solar panels on our roof so that we can generate our own electricity.
The benefits of outdoor learning
We passionately believe that children experience a huge range of benefits when they are playing and learning outside in natural environments. The natural world provides an infinite amount more learning resources and opportunities that can ever be provided in a single room or playground. This why we have purchased a completely secure and private nine acre field in Denholme, which it is in the process of developing into our own forest school facility, where children can be taken to enjoy playing and learning all day in a totally natural environment. We are not alone in believing this as a large number of studies show that children benefit from learning outdoors in many ways.