Leeds RERF offers environmental education, jobs and training
Environmental education, jobs and training for local people and opportunities for local businesses are just some of the benefits that our facility offers the community.
Education and waste awareness
We work in partnership with Leeds City Council to provide educational tours and visits to the state-of-the-art Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility. (RERF)
In our purpose-built Visitor Centre we can provide education about recycling and information on how to reduce your waste. We offer schools and higher education students a waste education programme focusing on waste minimisation and recycling activities. Our staff, can provide advice on reducing, reusing and recycling school waste and waste at home or in the workplace. Please use the "Contact Us" facility on this website to find out more.
We offer group tours for approximately two hours at the RERF Facility, to obtain a booking form please email [email protected].
School Fact Files
In partnership with Leeds City Council we have prepared 5 Secondary School Fact Files aimed at 11- 16.year olds. The Fact Files have been designed to complement the national curriculum and are to accompany school visits to the RERF. They can be used pre or post visit to the RERF and are available to download below.
Jobs and Training
We have started working with local colleges and job agencies to help local people get the skills to seek jobs on the project. We need workers. More than three hundred temporary jobs were created during the construction of the facility and 58 permanent posts – both technical and non-technical. We also run apprenticeships, work placements and work experience schemes.
The Environment
The facility helps increase recycling, significantly reduces landfill requirements for the city and provides an iconic high quality sustainable building which processes black bin waste in Leeds. The green 'living wall' and extensive landscaping help biodiversity in the area and provide a green point in an industrial area.
Veolia staff have also worked with local charities and groups on volunteer days, as well as supporting local and national environmental events.
Supporting the local economy
We buy our equipment, materials and services from Leeds businesses where we can and we will be holding supplier days to let potential suppliers know what the opportunities are. Where we have taken out materials for recycling we will seek to supply these to suitable local businesses if we can. We particularly try to help charities and not-for-profit businesses to be our business partners.