In summer 2021, I took part in the British Ecological Society’s (BES) undergraduate Summer School and I wanted to share my experience for any other students looking to pursue a career in ecology.
Thalia Waste Management – Student Site Visit
By Mia Wright
On the 21st May 2024, Palo Wood and I (second-year Environmental Geography BSc students at York St. John University) were invited to visit the Allerton Waste Recovery Park outside Knaresborough. Operated by Thalia Waste Management, this site delivers a range of environmental and waste management services. These include waste collection and treatment, undertaken for many years and often in collaboration with local authorities, communities and businesses across the UK.
On arrival, we were met at the local train station by the wonderful Educational Waste Management Officer, Laura Cooke. Laura briefed us on all health and safety measures before entering the site and presented us with information about how the Recovery Park is run, including key facts about food waste and appropriate recycling methods. We learnt how Thalia Waste Management control pollution levels produced in the course of their Energy from Waste processes using an advanced filter system to ensure emissions are in line with World Health Organisation limits.
After Laura’s presentation, we kitted-up in our PPE and were taken around the site to see how the machinery works. We saw conveyor belts full of household waste and spotted many ‘reusable’ shopping bags due to their identifiable orange colour! Palo and I were then lucky enough to be invited to to have several conversations with members of the the team that manage the site. We learned how staff deal with temporary power cuts (this happened whilst we were visiting – just our luck, only the second incident in 2 years!) and incorrect waste coming onto the site. We ended our day by having a conversation with Suranjan Ghosh, Operations Director at Thalia Waste Management. He was extremely invested in Thalia’s message about seeing waste not as rubbish but a resource: to be reused, recycled, or turned into energy!
I would like to thank Laura Cooke and Suranjan Ghosh at Thalia Waste Management, and Dr Olalekan Adekola at York St John University – as well as everyone we met at Allerton Waste Recovery Park – for enabling us to have such an insightful and interesting site tour. If you want to know more, you can take a virtual tour of the site, or even book your own visit!
