Businesses go Green in the Cairngorms National Park
30th October 2008
BUSINESSES and tourists in the Cairngorms National Park are being urged to play their part in making a cleaner and greener Park!
The Waste Aware Tourism project has been launched to encourage tourism businesses and visitors to reduce, reuse and recycle their waste. An information leaflet has been produced, which will be available at all tourist accommodation in the Park, detailing where and how people can recycle their waste. The project will help to meet the zero waste target in the Cairngorms National Park Plan, a document which sets out the National Park’s short and long term future.
The Cairngorms Recycling Forum, Association of Cairngorms Communities, the Community Recycling Network for Scotland (CRNS), the Cairngorms National Park Authority and Waste Aware Scotland are behind the project.
Joe Hind, Campaigns Officer at Waste Aware Scotland, said: “The campaign has been developed to encourage local tourism businesses and their staff to reduce, reuse and recycle their waste. We have added a new Tourism section to the Waste Aware Business website: www.wasteawarebusiness.org.uk which has relevant information, advice and tools for businesses to use to help inform visitors of the recycling facilities available during their stay. If each business makes even a small individual effort towards the campaign we can achieve something significant to show that businesses in Scotland really care about the waste we all produce.”
Members of the Cairngorms Recycling Forum are also trialling Green Johannas and compost bins (supplied by Green Cone Ltd), which take cooked and uncooked food waste and garden waste to produce all year round compost, and a ventilated food waste caddy with compostable liners by BioBags (Scotland).
David Bryan from the Community Recycling Network for Scotland, explained: “This project, which is led by the Association of Cairngorm Communities, is about how well Green Johannas will perform in a Cairngorms winter. They will be trialled with winter jackets to test their ability to compost waste during cold periods. If they work well, as we think they will, we will be able to promote this sort of technology more widely in the Park and make a big difference to our waste and carbon footprints.”
The Cairngorms Recycling Forum is also looking for new members. It is made up of businesses, organisations, community groups, councils and individuals from around the Park with the aim of reducing, reusing and recycling waste. Anyone interested in joining should contact David Bryan at [email protected]
For more information about Waste Aware Tourism please contact Joe Hind on 01786 468789 or [email protected]