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Environment

We've been working hard to reduce our environmental impact and are committed to making a day out at The Milky Way an environmentally friendly experience! Many of the improvements we've made have been as a result of an audit carried out by our specialist Environmental Consultants. We’re always looking at ways we can act more sustainably to minimise our impact on the environment, in everything we do. We're always looking at how we can improve our environmental policies.

Here are just a few things we have done to reduce our carbon footprint and to improve our natural environment.

Starlight cafe

Energy Consumption

We make brilliant use of our roofs with lots of solar panels installed and we also have a biomass heating system. We estimate that approximately 75% of our energy usage is now totally renewable and carbon neutral. Other steps we've taken to reduce our overall energy consumption

  • Insulated over 80% of the roofs
  • Replaced the wooden windows throughout the site with double glazed units
  • Changed to energy saving light bulbs throughout the site
Cardboard

Recycling

Over the last few years we have been making changes to ensure that we can recycle the vast majority of our waste. We started with buying a bailer, so we could process all our cardboard for recycling, we estimate that we currently recycle approximately ½ tonne of cardboard every month and recycling all glass from our cafes and The Old Barn wedding venue. In 2025, we appointed a new waste management company, who collect, sort and recycle our general waste and food waste and they have a zero to landfill policy - with no waste leaving the uk to foreign shores.

Water system

Water Usage

All our water comes from a natural lake deep beneath The Milky Way land. We access this water using a bore hole, before treating it with UV light to ensure that it's safe to drink. We have several places around the site to re-fill water bottles. We use a natural reed bed system to treat all of our sewage and wastewater, returning it back to the environment clean and safe. In fact, as an added bonus, the ponds that we created for the reed bed system now provide another fantastic natural habitat for our wildlife.

Aerial view of land

Nature & Wildlife

In 2000, we planted approximately 1,000 indigenous trees (species that are naturally found in this area) and 500 conifers around The Milky Way. In 2005 we planted 3,500 more conifers in our maze. More recently we've worked with the South West Forestry Commission and have completed the planting of an additional 35,000 indigenous trees covering 50 acres of our land which surrounds The North Devon Wakepark!

We went on to create another pond with an island in the middle to attract wildlife. We now have fish in the pond (we didn't put them there, so their eggs must have been carried here by birds!) and plenty of wildlife inhabiting the island and surroundings. Our wildlife includes wild Canadian geese, a pair of nesting mallards, two pairs of nesting moorhens and a visiting heron.

Gallery

Aerial view
A boiler
Solar panels
Ziggy Moon
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