Spotlight on Llys Nini: Caring for animals and the environment

My name is Lucy Barnett and I’m the Corporate Communications Manager at Welsh Water. Within my role I am responsible for creating engaging messaging on various topics, aimed at our business customers.

I recently had the opportunity to visit one of our business customers to volunteer at Llys Nini, RSPCA Animal Centre with other colleagues from Welsh Water.

Llys Nini is affiliated to the national RSPCA but receives no automatic funding from it. As well as rehoming animals, Llys Nini Animal Centre works to help the environment. You would think it’s easy for them to take water for granted when their focus is caring for over 200 animals at any one time, but after spending some time there and speaking with a number of Llys Nini volunteers, I quickly learned that this is not the case.

During my visit I got the opportunity to help the centre set up their sustainable Christmas Project. Myself and other members of staff planted over 100 little Christmas trees in the hope that these will grow and the project will allow for these trees to be hired by visitors to enjoy for the Christmas period. They can then return the trees to the centre to allow for them to be cared for further, helping them grow and capture carbon dioxide.

Whilst planting the trees I noticed that the centre had installed their own rainwater harvesting system where they collected the water from the shed roofs and stored it. We used this water during the planting and across the garden area.

The centre recognises that it’s a shame to kill a tree for Christmas, but with some space and love, they can live for many years, doing what trees do to help the environment!

Llys Nini

I recently caught up with Sally Hyman, Chair of RSPCA at Llys Nini, to get the background on their efforts to saving water:

“Everyone here at RSPCA Llys Nini, is passionate about managing our 78 acres in a sustainable way, to benefit the wildlife on the site, biodiversity and for all our visitors to enjoy. Welsh Water have been a huge help in setting up our sustainable community garden. It’s a place where some of our volunteers can learn how to grow their own food in a sustainable way, which is good for them and for the planet.

Along with our own rainwater harvesting system we have installed, we also have a portable 275L water bowser, so we can transport the water that we have captured to our other gardens and trees around the entire site.

When accommodating and caring for over 200 animals at any one time, there is obviously a lot of waste produced. Recognising that this was another area where we could be more sustainable, we’ve recently installed a new Effluent Treatment plant. We treat all our wastewater on site and return it to the water streams on our site. The treated water is checked and monitored by Natural Resources Wales and is of the highest purity possible. The streams and water courses flow down through our site and into our otter pond, where we now have otter, king fishers and the most wonderful dragonflies and damselflies as well as many other species.

At Llys Nini we endeavour to use water in a very responsible way, for the benefit of our business, the animals and the environment.”

Water is precious. Let’s not waste it.