Meet Mel de la Torre Zamora, our Community Liaison Officer
/With around 40 employees here at the Gloucestershire Energy from Waste Facility, we wanted to spotlight members of the team and explore what they do. For our first edition, Mel de la Torre Zamora shares her experience of working on site.
What is your role?
I am the Community Liaison Officer and it is my job to engage with our local community and offer visits to the Gloucestershire Energy from Waste Facility.
When did you start working at the Gloucestershire Energy from Waste Facility?
In April 2021, I joined as the Facility’s Site Administrator.
What experience do you have that helps you in your role?
I’ve mostly worked in customer service. I have also been a Teaching Assistant and a Play Worker. Everything I’ve previously done has helped in my role as I’ve always worked closely with a wide range of people.
What are your day-to-day tasks?
A typical day looks like this:
I take the minutes at the morning meeting.
I prepare the space for visitors.
I welcome my guests in the reception, bring them to the Visitor Centre and offer them tea or coffee.
After a presentation, we go on a tour of the Facility, which includes the boiler hall (with fire on the grate), the air-cooled condensers and the stack.
Then in the afternoon, I complete all the admin for my role.
What is the biggest misconception about the Facility?
I think the biggest misconception is that we take in the recycling that is collected from households within the county and burn it! The Facility has been designed to treat only the household residual waste left after recyclable materials have been removed by local residents.
However, we do recover non-combustible by-products from the treatment process, meaning that metals and aggregates that may otherwise have languished in landfills can be recovered and recycled into new items – the aggregates, for example, are transported off site and processed further to be reused as the sub-base for roads and within the construction industry.
We also recover energy in the form of steam from the process to generate the equivalent energy to power approximately 25,000 homes per year.
Has the unprecedented popularity of tours surprised you?
Definitely! I know I am fascinated by what we do here, but I wasn’t expecting to be booked up over a year in advance for visits. Most people enquire about visits after being recommended by a friend or family member, so we must be doing something right!
