A SCHOOL caretaker has been inspired to improve recycling.

Victoria CP school pupils in Offa held an assembly to the rest of their school, talking about the benefits of recycling.

This was after their visit to the Education Room at Wrexham Council's Bryn Lane Recycling Centre, where they learnt about the different types of bins, what can be recycled, what happens to our recycling, and why it is important not to contaminate recycling.

Also there was Graham Evans, maintenance manager at the school, who was really impressed with the session which has improved his recycling knowledge even further.

Cllr David A Bithell, lead member for environment and transport said: “It’s great that people are getting to see the Education Room and learn more about recycling. It’s proving very popular with schools, plus our Streetscene workers have been over recently to learn more. Knowledge is key, and it’s this greater understanding that can help us to reach our 70 per cent recycling target by 2025.”

Mr Evans said: “I found the visit to the Education Room really useful. I think other caretakers would find it beneficial too – it really puts everything into perspective.

“You actually get to see where everything goes and you get to understand the recycling process. It lets you see the things you don’t get to see, if that makes sense.”

Catherine Golightly, Waste Strategy Officer for Wrexham Council runs the sessions that give the pupils an interactive recycling experience.

A viewing window allows pupils to see how recyclable materials are bulked-up, ready to be taken away and recycled into new products.

Catherine said she was delighted that the children used their initiative to feed all this back to the rest of their school.

“It makes the workshops worthwhile, when you can see that the information is really being taken on board", she said.

"The fact they want to educate their whole school is wonderful. The pupils should be very proud of what they presented.”

Mr Evans added: “Something that stood out was the black bin waste. Everyone thinks it goes straight to landfill, but it doesn’t. It goes to Wrexham Industrial Estate where they try to take out as much metal and plastics as they can.

“Even some of the recycling has to be picked through to remove materials that have got contaminated by other waste.

“I’d like to think that if more people got to see what I’ve seen, they would understand recycling better and in-turn recycle more.”