Drusillas Zoo Wants Your Garden Waste to Feed Their Animals!
Drusillas Zoo is calling on locals to ditch the tip and donate their garden clippings instead. The zoo needs your unwanted plants to feed its 800 hungry animals. Different species love munching on various plants as part of their healthy diet, making your garden waste a valuable treat.
Bamboo Bonanza for Red Pandas Maja and Mulan
The zoo especially craves bamboo donations. Their two red pandas, Maja and Mulan, chow through a whopping 4kg of bamboo daily—that’s 40,000 leaves! While Drusillas has its own bamboo plantation, they’re after rare varieties like Phyllostachys nigra (black bamboo), which keepers call “panda candy.” Many households have these exotic bamboos just sitting in their gardens.
Going Green: A Waste-Free Mission
Zoo Animal Manager Mark Kenward said: “We’re working hard to be sustainable. Local businesses donate surplus veggies, we use natural materials for enrichment, switched to coir bedding, and send zero waste to landfill. Now, we want our community to join in and ensure viable plants don’t go to waste.”
How to Donate Your Garden Waste
- Drop off your fresh garden cuttings any day between 9am–5pm.
- Keep donations as fresh as possible—cuttings should be from the same day or within 24 hours.
- Interested? Email [email protected] to organise a drop-off.
