The Kon team look behind the scenes at the Hollybush Garden Re-cycling Centre

The Hollybush Garden Centre hosted our school visit 15 pupils attended the occasion

The Hollybush Garden Centre is Committed to preserving moorland and peat habitats in the most beautiful areas of the UK which are the homeland of many precious wild life species.

How do they do that? They recycle garden refuse and turn it into compost.

They grow their own plants in their nurseries using that compost and sell it on to big users who bag it and sell it on to other garden centres.

Yes it smells a bit, but it is a non-profit making , environmentally friendly arm to their commercial business.

This is what the green waste looks like piled up In the new year 2005 Christmas trees will be added to this pile of waste

To be ground up by this £333,000 piece of equipment

And then the waste is deposited in rows of green waste piles. These piles ferment and generate their own heat (85 degrees centigrade in the middle- enough heat to boil an egg)

The trick is to keep rotating the waste so that the cooler outside edges become the middle of each heap so enabling the green waste to be "evenly cooked"

Dangerous work for some!

And the release of steam awesome! From here the waste, once fermented down goes to a shredder and sorter plant.

The waste gets categorised into two areas.

Garden chips to prevent weed growth and compost.

This area was too dangerous for us to visit.

The result: a compost mountain which lies dormant for 8 months before it ends up in the posts our houseplants grow in and garden compost.

So if the wind blows the wrong way over Cheslyn Hay and there is a "niff" in the air.

Just remember this brilliant local initiative is protecting some of the most precious and beautiful parts of the UK

Martin Tibbetts
Wednesday, 01 December 2004
(pictures taken by the School "Knock out News" Team )