Metro Mayor Dan Norris made a bee-line to an Avonmouth-based recycling and renewable energy company to see a wildflower meadow celebrating its first birthday next week.
The Metro Mayor toured Avonmouth’s GENeco when launching his Bee Bold Awards.
The Mayor saw the site’s new blooming wildflower meadows to see the majestic flowers there. He learnt how the company have also added pollinator-friendly species to an old relief lagoon to help Avonmouth’s very own busy bugs when not whizzing from flower to flower, and created their own compost, to name but a few bee-friendly actions.
While GENeco is bursting with colour with flowering primroses, a bee favourite, here’s the sting – 99% of the UK’s wildflower meadows have been lost in the last 100 years, leaving pollinators in peril.
And habitat loss and bee-harming pesticide use mean 35 UK bees species could go extinct in the next few years. But GENeco Waste and Resources Advisor Jenny Harrison explained to the Metro Mayor how pollinator-loving bees-nisses can help with simple steps such as planting flowers.
Metro Mayor Dan Norris: “Wildflower meadows are a smart and bee-utiful way to support our precious bees and help sustain insects that pollinate our crops to keep the food we eat growing. We’ve lost so many in recent years, making spaces like these and rewilding a real necessity, and not just a pretty sight. GENeco is a buzzing place and a perfect example of a local business taking real action so our powerful little pollinators can thrive here in the West of England and across the country”.
The Mayor’s Bee Bold Awards recognise and celebrate West of England community groups, pollinator-friendly businesses like GENeco and others working to help the region’s busy buzzing bees and other pollinators thrive. Applications for the 2022 awards are now open.