Nature built on a legacy of waste

Peter Taylor-Whiffen visits an environmental teaching centre in Somerset that has managed to practise what it preaches

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The irony is not lost on Hamish Craig. "An environmental centre, an opportunity to educate people about ecology, a chance to show people a sustainable project of natural, recyclable resources – and all on a landfill site."

As environmental centres go, you don't get more arresting than Carymoor. In which other such habitat do you have to slow down for one of the hundred lorries that daily enter the tip? How many such reserves have you visited which insist you wear a yellow jacket to comply with waste management regulations?

On the same site, owned by the same contractors and cordoned off just by a road, you can see badgers, foxes, deer, amphibians, birds and a host of flora and fauna. But it is this juxtaposition of sustainable, living nature and the legacy of a generation of waste that gets the message across, says Open University graduate Hamish.

"I have been a keen environmentalist since I was eight, and went for weekend walks in Dorset with my prep school classmates," he says. "I just love the countryside. This is a perfect opportunity to sustain a natural environment and teach people what they can do to help."

Carymoor Environmental Centre was set up near Castle Cary in Somerset in 1996 thanks, by a circuitous route, to Hamish's study with the OU. "I was a physicist and a science teacher, but I was also chairman of the area's wildlife trust. My tutor, Mary Bell, suggested I switch to biology.

"Through the Biology Institute I visited a nature reserve created in an old chalk quarry in Hertfordshire and thought the project was fantastic.

"But while I was muttering about the possibility of doing something myself, Wyvern Waste contacted me – as wildlife trust chairman – to ask about moving some endangered newts on its landfill site. We got talking about using their land for the good of the environment and it went from there."

Within months, part of the landfill site was leased to Hamish to become Carymoor. Landfill tax credit funded the scheme which, over five years later, has grown to 100 hectares and won charitable status at the end of last year.

The centre works to promote sustainability in the green and built environment, and its eco-practice is a strong advertisement for the ethos. It harnesses solar energy, uses methane to generate electricity, has a composting site and uses wind power to pump out and purify leachate, filtering the waste out through reed-beds, making it as safe as drinking water.

The natural environment is not the only winner. Wyvern Waste has been awarded the Institute of Wastes Management's PEEL People's Cup four times – an achievement due in no small part, say Carymoor's staff, to the efforts of the conservationists.

"Many companies would have covered the land with top soil and an aggressive rye-grass," says Hamish. "It would have looked like green and pleasant land to the homeowners with a view of the site, but it wouldn't have been able to sustain wildlife. We worked with Wyvern and said it needed nutrients to help life to flourish, and enable us to re-introduce native species. Now, and to the credit of Wyvern Waste, we have been able to create a living, natural environment."

The uniqueness of the Carymoor project has attracted widespread attention. The British Conservation Trust for Volunteers has a representative on site to supervise a team of willing participants. Researchers from Brighton, Staffordshire and Southampton universities and Yeovil and Bath Spa colleges are conducting grassland ecology experiments on the site, while Reading University is using some of the land for habitat creation and another area for plant collection. There is also a butterfly conservation area, a wildflower and tree nursery, ponds and a badger bank.

Teaching is the major aspect of the project and it is aimed at all ages. "It's bringing the environmental and ecological message to the fore," says centre manager Jill Gilbert. "It's education by demonstration."

This is unarguable. The visitors' centre is a working example of all things sustainable. The building itself is made from reclaimed materials. Recycled newspaper is used for insulation, heating comes from reject compost and waste wood, and the centre uses rainwater. Even the waste from the lavatories is filtered by compost through reed-beds.

And it rarely fails to impress people of all ages. "We see all sorts of groups," says Jill. "You see teenagers being dragged round by their teachers and by the end of the day they're stroking the wood, really appreciating the material and the craft. We've even had three-year-olds, who still connect, somehow, some way. We took a group of toddlers out one day in foul weather, and they saw a man dressed in yellow oilskins, working at the top of a bank. They were very excited – they thought he was a Teletubby!"

But Hamish says adults can be "more of a challenge" than children. "We were giving a WI group a tour and one of the women was shocked to see all the waste on the landfill," says Hamish. "We asked her if she put a black bag of rubbish out for the dustmen and she said yes, but I think as far as she was concerned that was the end of it. We asked her: 'So where did you think it all went?'"

The staff are trying every method they can to get people into the centre – which takes some initiative on the part of schools officer Luke Shutt. "School trips have to fit the National Curriculum," he says. "You need to sell the idea to teachers who know their pupils will be missing lessons in a whole range of subjects."

The centre has received support from local bodies including South Somerset District Council, the county's Environmental Records Centre and Somerset County Council. Six teachers will be appointed to spread the message still further, and all the staff are educating the community about recycling and the need to protect the environment. The centre also includes stand-alone courses for all ages, which educate and inform about environment and ecology.

While Carymoor is a very practical restoration of, literally, wasteland to a natural habitat, the message it gives is more important than the transformation itself.

The message is also about teaching people about the damage they are doing to the environment. "We're succeeding and we're educating," says Hamish. "I had no idea the project would take off like this."