Telford recycling plant welcomes school for ‘first of its kind’ tour, led by popular kids’ TV presenter
A secondary school in North Wales won a ‘money can’t buy’ trip to one of the biggest fridge recycling plants in Europe, hosted by a children’s TV presenter.
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AO, the UK’s most trusted electrical retailer, ran a competition to give one lucky class the chance to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the state-of-the-art facility, in Telford, led by CBBC host and sustainability influencer James Stewart.
Ysgol Bryn Alyn, in Wrexham, won the prize and took a group of 15 pupils, aged between 11 and 13.
As well as meeting AO’s huge fridge crushing machine Bertha, which weighs 80 tonnes and can ‘eat’ up to 100 fridges per hour, the class were also shown science experiments with Lego and learned about how AO processes around 200 tonnes of fridge plastic each week, which goes on to make new products such as bathroom and kitchen fans.
During the trip, James Stewart challenged the children to ‘be a TV presenter for the day’ by filming their visit, on smart phones provided by AO, and editing the footage into short videos, which have since been shared on AO’s social media channels.
Richard Holden, science teacher at Ysgol Bryn Alyn, said: “I can’t thank AO enough for choosing our school to win their competition.
“It was a really insightful day and James Stewart was great with the kids, giving them the confidence to be mini TV presenters and letting them shine.”
James Stewart added: “I was absolutely blown away when I first visited AO’s fridge recycling plant so it’s been brilliant to experience it through the eyes of children this time around. I think a few of them have bright futures as TV presenters and sustainability influencers!”
Rob Sant, AO’s group recycling director, came up with the idea for the competition after learning that more than a third of Brits rely on their kids to remind them to recycle. A survey of more than 2,000 British adults, commissioned by AO, found that around 39 per cent of British adults need some help from their children when it comes to recycling.
“It’s amazing to see kids leading the charge when it comes to recycling, so it was a pleasure to welcome a school class to AO Recycling for the first time ever,” Rob said.
“It was brilliant to see how engaged they were throughout the day and the videos that they’ve put together in such a short space of time are really impressive.”
