Weston College students visit Ginsters
Cornish pasties have provided students from Weston College with an insight into waste management.
Students on the Foundation Degree in Public and Environmental Health recently went on a field trip to Cornwall where they visited the Ginsters production site in Callington and discovered how waste generated from making 140,000,000 pasties and other pastry products each year is managed.
The students met with Mark Bartlett, the Environment Manager for Ginsters, and found out that while the site has huge potential to generate waste this is mitigated by a number of projects on site to minimise waste.
“What is most remarkable about this site is it is a Zero to Land Fill site,” said David Lown, Course Coordinator, Public and Environmental Health, at Weston College.
“There are many stories in the media about food waste so it is particularly beneficial for students to see such a good example of best practice in reducing waste and protecting the environment.”
Ginsters recycle 300 tonnes of cardboard and 100 tonnes of plastic each year, and the students were given a tour of the recycling plant and water treatment plant.
They were also shown the water treatment plant, and heard how each tonne of food product manufactured at Ginsters requires up to -four tonnes of water, making the water treatment plant an important cost effective facility.
The students heard that, despite the various methods on site to reduce food waste, Ginsters still generates 21,000 tonnes of food waste each year.
However, this is not wasted as it is used in an Anaerobic Digester where bacteria convert it into renewable electricity and fertilizer. The remaining 487 tonnes of waste that cannot be reused, recycled or bio-digested are sent to the Energy from Waste Plant in Avonmouth, Bristol, to generate yet more energy.
This was the fifth visit by Public and Environmental Health students at Weston College to the Ginsters site.
The field trip also included visits to the Eden Project to look at on-site health and safety, and to the National Trust property of Lanhydrock where they considered fire safety in a Victorian Country House.
They also looked at the environmental impacts from Wainwrights quarry near Frome, and undertook some field work monitoring water quality on Wembury beach in Devon.
