sustainability.
At Northumberland Zoo, sustainability is at the heart of everything we do.
1
Building Materials
We source all of the wood required for all of our exhibits and builds from the local sawmill at Wingates. This also includes the FSC assured wood that we acquire for our biomass boilers.
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Majority of exhibit and building fascias are created from waney board which is an all natural by-product of the timber industry. This style of boarding also creates homes for wildlife.
2
Renewable Energy
At the Zoo, we have a total 69 kW worth of solar panels helping to generate electricity for our facilities and exhibits year round.
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The solar panels help provide energy on better weather days and charge our on-site batteries which then release energy overnight.
3
Heating
Our adminstrative offices, main entrance & gift shop, Bear Falls Cafe & Softplay, Curious Creatures & Meerkat House are all heated by a biomass woodchip boiler. We obtain all FSC assured wood slabs and chip them on-site with our own equipment.
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The Bat House, Parrot House and the Wild Theatre are all heated with a separate biomass boiler unit which allows us to recycle cardboard bales, pallets, old wood and convert them into heat.
4
Water
At the Zoo, we are off-grid and have our own borehole for all of our water requirements.
5
Animal Food
We source the majority of our fruit and vegetables from a local market. With the addition of a new polytunnel in 2023, we are also growing a lot of food for the animals on-site.
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Currently, we grow and process all of our own hay & haylage on-site. All of the straw for the animals is sourced from neighbouring farmer's fields.
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Sawdust is collected from the local sawmill as it is a by-product.
6
Recycling
We have an on-site recycling centre where we separate our waste, and bale it into different types for recycling.
With this compactor on-site, we also bale all of the cardboard from all deliveries for recycling. One of our biomasses is also able to take the cardboard bales and convert them into heat in one of our biomasses.
7
Gift Shop
Care is taken when choosing suppliers for the gift shop. We have reduced the number of different suppliers that we use in order to reduce our carbon footprint and we have added a number of local suppliers in the last year.
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Our main range of Northumberland Zoo soft toys are both made and filled with recycled plastic bottles.
