Double delight for green Thistles
The Thistles is celebrating after winning two environment awards in an international campaign to find the greenest companies, councils and communities.
It has picked up a gong in the recycling improvement category of the Green Apple Gold award.
Judges deemed the centre’s coffee cup recycling scheme, launched in conjunction with New Star Environmental and Simply Cups, worthy of the top gold honour.
Over 145kg or 20 bags of wax lined cups went to recycling in the first three months of the project.
A bronze award for environmental improvement also went to the centre’s garden with bees project.
Originating in an unused area in the service yard, the garden was built from recycled materials in which vegetables are now grown and then donated to the Sunlight Café in Stirling, a facility that helps adults with mental health challenges gain self confidence in catering.
Also included in the awardwinning submission was the Thistles current work with Stirling High School and beekeeping company Plan Bee which has seen the installation of the bee hive on the centre’s roof.
The Thistles has now been invited to have its winning papers published in the Green Book, a leading international work of reference on environmental best practice, allowing others around the world to follow the centre’s example and learn from its achievement.
A Thistles spokesperson said: “This double win is a wonderful finale to what has been an exciting year of green initiatives and ongoing improvements by the centre.”
The Green Apple Awards are organised by The Green Organisation, an independent, non-political, non-activist, non-profit environment group and supported by the Environment Agency and a host of independent bodies.