The winner of the Green Building award in the 2017 Church Times Green Church Awards has just commissioned its latest eco-venture – an environmentally friendly loo.

The toilet at St Wenn Church has its very own compact water treatment plant, which means the liquid coming from the system is clean enough for discharge into an open water course.

The Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, on Sunday (March 17, 2019) visited the church to see all the work that has happened to date and to preach at the service which celebrated the completion of the washroom and toilet.

Next phase – rainwater

It is hoped that the next phase of the church’s development will be a system to collect rainwater to use for flushing the toilet.

Stephen Chidgey, who has played a leading role in the greening of St Wenn Church, said: “It’s incredibly wasteful to use water that has been treated and is fit for human consumption to flush a toilet.

“As with our previous heating project, this venture was only possible because so many in the community volunteered themselves and their time, which enabled us to get the work done in an affordable way. But this has also helped to make it a very community-focused project.”

The first phase of the greening of St Wenn Church was the installation of a biomass boiler, which is shared with the neighbouring village school, and an environmentally-friendly underfloor heating system.

At the time of winning the award, the church of England’s lead bishop on the environment, the Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam, said of St Wenn“It is a beautiful example of the pastoral mission of the parish church being care for the community and the members of the community caring for and becoming the parish church.”