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ARB Student Reports: Recycling Centre and Cornwall College

Last term saw several students from our Area Resource Base (ARB) visit Cornwall College and the Suez Recycling & Recovery Centre, where they experienced fantastic tours and presentations.

As part of the visits, Ben, Sam, Monique and Aidan wrote their very own reports on their experiences, all of which you can read below!

My Visit to Cornwall College, by Ben

Roughly a month ago, I was experimenting of which college I would go to. I visited Cornwall College in Camborne, I really enjoyed my time there, everyone was so nice and caring. Amazingly there are some Manchester United fans which I’m sure I’ll get along with.

The teacher showed me the gym facilities they had and showed me how to use them. Shortly after I started using the equipment, I started going on the rowing machine to warm up so I won’t get any pulled muscles or any other kind of injury. After that I done the plank for 2 minutes which was above my expected standard. I was tired but like the Roman warrior I am I carried on to the next set of equipment. Nothing was going to stop me, I just hydrated and moved on. I was in the zone! It was a phenomenal experience, I would definitely do it again.

I had another visit at Cornwall College on 4/4/22 and I would happily say that it is the college that I would like to go to in September. The people there are so genuine and I can’t wait to see them in the future.

Overall, it is a spectacular place definitely worth going to…  I can’t wait to find out what my future at Cornwall College has in store for me.

My Visit to Cornwall College, by Sam

I recently went to Cornwall College to have a visit. Simon gave me a tour of what course I will have, the life skills course and then I did the taster day.

My first taster was the photography. I was asked to make a nature picture with twigs and leaves and rock.

Sam, my gym teacher showed me and Ben around the gym and he showed what equipment they had. I went on the rowing machine. I did not even break a sweat! I did the plank for 1 minute and my friend did it for 2 minutes. He did it for a long time. His face went really red. I did the treadmill for 1km and I was tired after that. I did the bike machine for roughly 5km and my legs were aching. I was working on my arms and legs, it really ached. I did 10 to 15 weight arm pull ups. They did not really hurt.

In the end I had Sam again for web design. We did our favourite app or website. We did a lot of typing about this. I sat there thinking my legs are still aching and they really hurt. When I got up to go home I felt like my legs were going to fall off!

I decided that Cornwall College is a good place to go!

My Visit to the Recycling Centre, by Monique

Last week I went to see the Recycling Centre. I saw a massive green lizard.  He had a body made of spiky bottles and a green metal face. I met two ladies, they were called Abby and Sarah.

First I played a game called recycling bean bag. I played with Ishbel, Sophie and Aidan. It is when we pick up the bean bag – I went for cling film and threw it in the rubbish bin. Ishbel threw the rice and it went in the compost bin.

Sarah spoke in a presentation how to Reduce, Re-use, Recycle and Recover the rubbish. She said we need to not buy food in plastic bags, we need to get rid of the plastic. She said we have to reuse the empty bottles to make a plastic greenhouse. She told us about the recycling bags. All the rubbish bags go to St Dennis power station to burn and make electricity.

Later I went to see the recycling area. I had to wear a high vis jacket to keep safe and I wore the headset because the machines were so loud.  Then Abby showed us where the rubbish was sorted and I did not like the disgusting smell!

I enjoyed the trip to the Recycling Centre. In the future at home I will help Dad with sorting out the rubbish into the recycling to help the environment.

My Visit to the Recycling Centre, by Aidan

As we arrived at the Recycling Centre we were greeted by a lizard sculpture. It was mad with recycled glass bottles. They had recycled 2348 tonnes of rubbish in February alone. This is roughly the weight of 391 elephants being collected every month.

We played a game called bin it, recycle it, compost it. I threw a paint tin in the rubbish bin and Ishbel threw rice in the compost. I made a rhyme  – ‘I have no choice but to consign the paint tin to the bin’.

The 4 Rs are Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, Recover. I learned to never put black plastic in the recycling because there is a laser which scans what type of plastic it is. So, if you have black plastic, always put it in the bin so it will go to St Dennis and get burned. St Dennis has an incinerator that takes all of Cornwall’s black bin bags and burns them to make electricity. Every time your black bin bag is collected you can think: it’s on its way to St Dennis to power Cornwall’s gadgets.

Learning about what we should or shouldn’t recycle has opened up my mind to recycling more. I want to reduce the amount of plastic in my black bin bag to be more eco friendly.