CHILDREN from a York school have helped Nestlé’s factory achieve its aim of sending no waste to landfill tips.

The Press reported last week how the confectionery giant had achieved zero waste four years ahead of target, by recycling and recovering its waste materials and reducing packaging.

Now the company has revealed how pupils from New Earswick Primary School played their part in the success by entering a competition to design a new logo to use on the site to spearhead the recycling initiative. “The winner and the 12 other finalists were invited to the factory where they saw the production line and got to go into the kitchens to make their own confectionery,” said a spokesman.

He said the overall winner, Mia Reilly-Smythe, had her logo made up professionally and she won a laptop, while two runners up, Tiffany Harris and Meg Dunning, were given i-touchs, provided by Yorwaste, the company’s recycling partner.

Nestle, which makes more than a billion KitKats and 183 million Aeros at the York factory each year, has 30 recycling champions across the site, who cover all shifts and processes.

The zero waste achievement has meant a yearly saving to the company of nearly £120,000 in landfill tax, and it has also generated revenue by selling nearly 800 tonnes of recovered materials such as cardboard, plastics, metal, pallets and metallised film.

Paul Grimwood, the York-born chairman and chief executive of Nestlé UK, has spoken of his pride at what employees had achieved in such a short time, saying the company was committed to manufacturing in a way that protected the planet and its resources for future generations.