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Location Machynlleth, Powys, Wales
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The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) (Welsh: Canolfan y Dechnoleg Amgen) is an eco-centre in Montgomeryshire, Powys, Wales dedicated to demonstrating and teaching sustainable development. CAT, despite its name, no longer concentrates its efforts exclusively on alternative technology, but provides information on all aspects of sustainable living. It is open to visitors, offers postgraduate degrees as well as shorter residential and one day courses; and publishes information on renewable energy, sustainable architecture, organic farming, gardening, and sustainable living. CAT also runs education programmes for schools and sells environmentally friendly items through its on site shop, restaurant and mail order department.

Activities[edit | edit source]

(From their website

What do we do?

We offer solutions to some of the most serious challenges facing our planet and the human race, such as climate change, pollution and the waste of precious resources.

We demonstrate practical ways of addressing these problems. Leading by example, we aim to show that living more sustainably is not only easy to attain but can provide a better quality of life.

Averting a massive environmental disaster is not out of our reach, although if we continue to treat the early signs with apathy, it soon will be.

We address every aspect of the average lifestyle - the key areas we work in are renewable energy, environmental building, energy efficiency, organic growing and alternative sewage systems.

We promote our ideas in a variety of ways:

Our Visitor Centre is open seven days a week. Interactive displays show global issues such as energy generation and transport, and practical, everyday solutions for everyone.

CAT also runs a free information service, answering enquiries on a massive range of topics by phone, letter or email, five days a week. For bigger projects, there is also a consultancy service.

CAT is a great place to learn new things, for all ages. We run a range of residential courses - from weekends to a yearlong MSc. Our dedicated Education Department arranges school trips to CAT, which can be tied in with the National Curriculum.

We publish books on various 'green' topics, and sell eco-books and products through a shop and mail order service.

Visitor Centre[edit | edit source]

The Centre for Alternative Technology is based in an old slate quarry in central Wales. Here they have a visitor centre with working examples of many different technologies plus an excellent bookshop and restaurant. Well worth a visit if you are anywhere in the area.

Residential Courses[edit | edit source]

The centre offers residential courses form a weekend to a year long MSc.

Publications[edit | edit source]

CAT publications are available for download from their website. These are not free. All have to be paid for and CAT owns the copyright in all of the publications and (as far as I can see) does not permit these publications to be copied or posted elsewhere.

They do have some free information sheets and a discussion forum.

External links[edit | edit source]

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Keywords eco-centre, education for sustainability
Authors Joe Raftery
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 14 pages link here
Aliases CAT - Centre for Alternative Technology (Wales), CAT - Centre for Alternative Technology
Impact 1,090 page views
Created December 13, 2009 by Joe Raftery
Modified April 21, 2023 by Felipe Schenone
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