Responsible Visitor Charter: Be a Green Ambassador at Wray Valley
At Wray Valley, we are committed to promoting sustainable tourism practices and preserving the natural beauty of Dartmoor. By staying or visitng here, you contribute to our ongoing conservation efforts. However, if you wish to go the extra mile, our Responsible Visitor Charter invites you to explore various ways you can make a positive impact during your visit. Discover how you can become a green ambassador and leave a lasting, eco-friendly impression on this cherished landscape.
What You Can Do
Support local businesses
When you eat in the pub, use the local shops or visit local attractions you’re boosting the local economy and that keeps Dartmoor and Devon the place you wanted to visit. See our see and do pages for places to eat, great days out and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for the latest on local events.
Take a car free day out
Why not leave the car behind for at least one day? Take a look at our see and do pages. You could go for a walk or cycle ride or take the bus across the moor (summer only).
Leave the car behind completely and arrive on foot, cycle or by public transport and get a discount or bar credit for your stay. Take a look at our sustainable transport options.
Cut back on your food miles
The energy used to get food to your plate makes a really substantial contribution to climate change. We produce our own apple juice, bread and preserves here at Wray Valley. Our chickens produce a limited supply of eggs and in season we have salad crops for sale. If we don’t have any left there are always some in the local stores and farm shops. All the drinks from our bar are made locally. Find out more under local producers on our Sustainability page.
Drink our own Devon spring water
Our tap water comes from our own borehole and is treated in the shed on the campsite – its chlorine free but has been filtred and UV treated. It hasn’t been bottled in plastic and distributed by lorry across the county. Check out www.refill.org.uk to find out where you can top up your bottle tap water for free when you are out and about.
Shorten your shower
Because our water comes from our own supply it is not unlimited so you can make a real difference by keeping your shower as short as possible. If you are on the campsite this will make you very popular with the next person in the queue too! We mainly use solar energy to heat the water we store in a tank so it is not “hot water on demand”. It can take a few minutes to heat up if the last person used all the hot water!
Waste Less Food
Waste less (and save yourself some money) – please don’t put any food in the wheelie bin!
If it’s really not fit for consumption take off the wrapping and put it in the food waste caddy or give it to a member of staff. If you don’t want to take it home at the end of your stay it’s fine to leave it in the fridge in the B&B or hand it to a member of staff. If you are camping you can leave non-perishable items in the campers’ kitchen. It might save the next guest/camper from buying yet another bottle of ketchup.
Apart from anything else, all of Wray Valley’s waste will be hand-checked for recycling. Mouldy bread, milky cereals, coleslaw and baked beans in the bin make that a horrible job!
Unwanted Toiletries
Can be left in the shower block for use by campers who have forgotten theirs. Just leave them on top of the microwave.
Recycle
It’ll only take a moment and you’re joining an effort that’s sending most of ‘waste’ back into the useable resource stream.
- If you are camping, you’ll see the boxes for glass, tins and clean plastic in the recycling area behind the shed in the campsite. Please give all the recycling a rinse – not only is the recycling hand sorted, mouldy yoghurt containers and dirty meat trays will attract the kind of wildlife we’d rather not support. Paper and cardboard are very useful for lighting your campfires but we also have a box for that if you have too much. Log buckets should be returned for reuse.
- All the B&B bedrooms have a recycling box too and there is a food waste bin in the lounge.
- If you are unsure just ask or give it to a member of staff.
Take your camping gear home
We all know that camping equipment can fail but please take it home with you for disposal. We’ve lost count of the number of airbeds and broken chairs left beside the bin!
Turn off things you’re not using
Turn off things you’re not using – like lights. Please let us know if the heating is too warm in your B&B room rather than opening a window, and please turn things off the bathroom light when you go out for the day. Yes, the cost of electricity is included in your stay and it’s renewable, but the broader picture is that we all need to reduce our consumption because it’s costing the Earth.
Donate to Dartmoor
Help Dartmoor National Park to look after Dartmoor so that the story of this stunning landscape – home to so much and history of so many – can continue to be loved for years to come.
Sustainability at Wray Valley
Find out more about what we are doing on our part towards making tourism on Dartmoor sustainable.
Visit Dartmoor Sustainability Pledge
For more ideas of what you can do