Going Posh at the Wetlands

I like going down the local wetlands to do some bird watching, there I've said it. My wife and I are amateur twitchers and joined up the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust at Martin Mere. We moved back to South Wales and of course the nearest place is the Llanelli Wetlands, it's a wonderful area with places you can take the kids to so they can see wildlife close up and some areas and hides for the dedicated bird watcher. 

And then there's the cafe area, it was really quite good, not that expensive but the food was good and the staff are very friendly, they even had a rack you could take your dirty dishes back to. And now they have modernised to bring it in line with Slimbridge.

We went there on the weekend after the modernisation, I ordered the pizza as the description of it was good and my wife wanted a toasted sandwich. In the past, they made the sandwiches, now they are wrapped in a box which means there's more waste with the packaging. They didn't have what we wanted on display which wasn't too exotic so we ordered a baked potato instead and then sat down.

In the past, the potato would have arrived on a plate, with some salad on the side, knives and forks would have come out of a tray and mayonnaise out of a sachet. 

You now get a potato in a bowl, on a triangular plate, coleslaw is in another container and the salad is in jar with a resealable lid, the knife and fork are now presented in a expensive looking bit of cardboard. 

The pizza arrived not on a plate, but on a plank of wood, not an easily washed plate but a bit of wood that soaks up any grease and as there was a pizza on it with cheese, it happily obliged with the soaking. This has all greatly increased the amount of washing that needs to be done and in my opinion the amount of waste produced.

There is now more room and more seating space and this was sadly lacking before but the prices have gone up and the cafe was considerably quieter than we normally expect on a Sunday afternoon. The staff are still very happy and helpful and they now come round to empty the tables.

It seems crazy that a place that is trying to encourage responsible behaviour towards wildlife has, in my opinion increased it's wastage, use of water and cleaning materials for no real reason.

Come on WWT, stop being pretentious, your loyal visitors come there to see the wildlife, take pictures, have some good quality food in a nice environment and argue about who has the best and most expensive camera or lens, they don't want food on a plank of wood, they want it on a plate, like normal people do.