Cumbria Waste opens £1.25m MRF near Carlisle

The Hespin Wood plant is capable of handling 50,000 tonnes of household and commercial waste from within the county each year, with local authorities such as Eden district council sending materials to the new facility.

Cans, plastics, cards and glass bottles collected at the kerbside are sent to the Hespin Wood site alongside commercial, industrial and construction waste which covers a range of materials such as soil, rubble, plasterboard and wood.

Once on-site, recyclables are separated and sorted before being sent on to reprocessors, while any non-recyclable material will be processed as solid recovered fuel (SRF), refuse derived fuel (RDF) or sent to landfill ‘if absolutely necessary’.

Shanks

At present, household waste from Barrow, South Lakeland and Eden is sent to one of Shanks’ two mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plants in the area, which have the capacity to treat 75,000 tonnes of waste each.

The facilities were developed as part of a 25-year, £700 million waste disposal contract with Cumbria county council agreed in 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story). https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/shanks-opens-second-mbt-in-cumbria/

Commenting on the opening of the new MRF, Mike Bareham, managing director of Cumbria Waste Group, said the plant allowed recyclables to be processed inside the county rather than being transported to other areas of the UK.

He said: “We are delighted to have the MRF operational and to be achieving very high recycling rates on behalf of our customers.

“This is a significant investment on our part but one which was needed to ensure waste generated in in Cumbria is actually processed in the county, rather than having to be sent out of the area, as was the case previously.

“It provides our current and potential customers with a cost-effective and sustainable waste management solution that has major environmental benefits.”

Market

Mr Bareham added: “We are achieving recycling rates of up to 98% by using the MRF to process the co-mingled materials and through selling the materials on the recycling market we are even able to offer our customers a rebate, so as well as meeting their environmental responsibilities, they are earning an income from their waste as well.”

The MRF has so far generated 14 jobs in the local area, with more expected to be created in the coming months.