MEMBER’S PRESS RELEASE: New generation! Birmingham schoolchildren tour Biogen green energy plant

Children and teachers from Anglesey Primary School were thrilled to tour Warwickshire’s newest green energy plant to see electricity being generated from the region’s leftovers.

The visit to Biogen’s Merevale food waste recycling plant was organised as part of the children’s environment and geography studies focusing on changes in the Merevale area regarding land use and settlements. The plant site was previously a colliery and fossils dating back 300 million years were unearthed during the groundworks phase.

The anaerobic digestion (AD) plant near Atherstone recycles food waste from homes and businesses to generate 2MW of green electricity for the National Grid (enough for 4,500 homes) and produces a high-quality biofertiliser for farmland. The group of 90 children aged 10-11 watched in awe as hundreds of tonnes of waste food was put through the recycling process and, along with their teachers, toured the site to view the huge tank area, engines and ‘green bubble’ where the biogas is stored.

Anglesey Primary School’s Head Teacher Lynne Houston said: 

The children benefited enormously from their visit to the Merevale plant and the team there did a great job explaining how everything works. We’d like to make this a regular visit for our Year 6 children in future years and incorporate it as part of a programme of study.

Kevin Eagles, Biogen’s Site Manager at Merevale said:

We’re glad the children could see the environmental benefits of recycling and see how the area has been developed and will provide power for future generations.

Biogen has seven food waste AD plants in Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Warwickshire, Denbighshire, Caernarfon and Rhondda Cynon Taf, and was named Recycling Business of the Year at the 2016 Awards for Excellence in Recycling and Waste Management.