Helping Sunderland City Council achieve their recycling targets

Sunderland City Council is undertaking the design and construction of a new household waste and recycling centre to replace the existing site. Waterman Aspen have been supporting them in the delivery of this project, where we have Matt Ingham (Senior Highway Engineer) seconded to the Infrastructure and Commercial team. Matt is responsible for supporting the project team by progressing the design to the construction stage and liaising with a wide range of Council departments and waste management partners to deliver a design that meets the latest waste industry standards. The twelve-month construction programme started in December 2020.

The design has focused on two primary objectives; creating a site that is as safe for both users and operators, and one that significantly increases the percentage of recycled waste.

Health and safety concepts were incorporated into the design at the earliest opportunity by ensuring that the users (members of the public) were completely segregated from the operator (site staff). This was achieved by providing a central service yard where the skips are serviced by the site staff and a separate perimeter road for members of the public to access the skips. Separate entrances/exists for both were also provided to ensure total segregation. The public areas were designed at a higher level to remove the need for steps which account for the majority of accidents at HWRC sites.

The site aims to accept up to 31 waste streams. It is anticipated that the majority of the waste will be collected in the 39 large (40 yard) skips, which will include garden waste, cardboard, scrap metal, timber, general waste and more. Smaller skips will be used for lower volume waste streams such as oil, batteries, fluorescent tubes, gas bottles, electrical appliances and more. Bring banks will also be used for textiles, books, shoes and DVD/CD’s. Segregation of waste streams is key to achieving high recycling targets. A re-use shop will be constructed on site to sell recycled items to the public. On-site recycling shops have been used successfully at other household waste and recycling sites in the UK.

Photo credit: Sunderland City Council.