I’m Harri, the Wilder Officer up North, and as part of my role, I am active in the community finding out how local people are taking action for nature. With this project, however, I was lucky enough to be able to be part of the journey.  

Before we get into all the details, I think introducing Paula, Health & Wellbeing Manager at Bassetlaw Action Centre would be a great start. Bassetlaw Action Centre is a Community Resource Agency linking individuals and organisations with help and support. Paula has worked for them for 9 years and is an active member of the Retford community.  

Right, back to the project! I was week two on the job and knee-deep in training and policy reading when Paula messaged asking if I would like to meet for a cuppa and a chat in the café at Idle, it was a very welcome distraction. Paula and I instantly hit it off and got chatting about all sorts. I learnt of Paula's love of nature and the great outdoors, her enthusiasm was contagious.  We spent a good while discussing the lack of opportunities for young people within the volunteering sector. So we decided we wanted to create an opportunity for young people to volunteer whilst taking action for Nature, and that was it the project as born.  

The project bit

We decided to source a metal frame for used aluminium cans to be collected in and then in turn these cans would be taken for recycling. Paula suggested we ask the Idle Valley staff what shape they would like and it was unanimously a beaver.  “Project Beaver” was born.  

It was about the same time that I was getting to know the staff and students at Notts College who are on-site at Idle Valley every Tuesday, when they mentioned they were looking for volunteering opportunities. It was as if the stars had aligned. We now had the idea, the volunteers and thanks to Paula's Arts Council funding, the funds.  

On Tuesdays, the young volunteers from Notts College meet along with a member of Bassetlaw Action Centre and collect cans from around the reserve and put them in the beaver. They also collect cans from the local community and bring them to Idle Valley. It wasn’t long before the lovely beaver sculpture was full and the cans needed to be taken to the recycling centre. 

The science bit

With a little research, I discovered that recycling aluminium creates by far the biggest savings of greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling one aluminium can save enough energy to power a TV for 2 hours. We decided to roughly estimate how long we can power a TV for from ‘Project Beaver’ over the course of a year.  

The maths bit

The first time the sculpture was emptied the cans were counted thanks to our youth volunteers from North Notts College. They counted and crushed over 500 cans taking the total to 989 cans. That’s a lot of TV power.

We will use this as a rough guide to how many cans have been recycled through the year. Then times this by 2 (the number of hours a TV can be powered for).

So for one full beaver sculpture, we have saved enough energy to power a TV for 1,978 hours (not that we are recommending that much TV! It just gives an easy way for us to measure the benefits!) 

If you are taking action for nature, I would love to hear from you. You can get me on Facebook, or contact us!