Fire hits Shanks Frog Island facility

Nearly 60 firefighters and eight fire engines are tackling a blaze which broke out this morning (August 4) at Shanks mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plant at Rainham in East London.

An eyewitness close to the scene told letsrecycle.com that smoke was coming from Shanks 45 million Frog Island MBT facility on Creek Way, which has the capacity to process 180,000 tonnes a year of household waste from four East London boroughs.

According to the eyewitness, getting to the facility this morning was difficult because there were so many fire engines.

A spokesperson for Shanks said: “Shanks can confirm that there has been a fire on one of its lines at its Frog Island facility in East London. As the site’s incident management procedures worked as planned, nobody was injured and the fire is now under control.”

And, when contacted by letsrecycle.com, the East London Waste Authority which sends waste to the MBT facility confirmed that there was a fire at the Frog Island MBT. However, when asked whether it would impact on household collection services, the Authority declined to comment.

The fire service, which was called to the scene at 9.27am, said around 100 tonnes of household waste is alight which is the equivalent of 40 white rhinoceros.

Location

A spokesman for the fire service said the fire was inside the building pit where around 25% of the material was alight.

London Fire Brigade said: Smoke has dissipated and no homes are affected. We’re taking water directly from the Thames to fight the fire.

The fire service added that the cause of the fire is unknown at this stage but that crews were expected to be at the scene throughout the day.

The Creek Way site also includes a materials recycling facility (MRF) and was built under a 25-year contract worth more than 1 billion signed with the East London Waste Authority in 2002.

Under the contract, Shanks disposes of waste from 850,000 households in the four London boroughs of Havering, Newham, Redbridge and Barking & Dagenham (see letsrecycle.com story). Shanks also operates another MBT plant to service the contract at Jenkins Lane in Barking.

Havering

Todays incident comes on the same day as a new waste and recycling collection service is rolled out in Havering by council contractors Serco, who were awarded a seven-year, 40 million contract with the council in February. The contract will see it collect over 73,000 tonnes of material per year (see letsrecycle.com story).

A spokeswoman for Havering borough council said: Due to the fire at Frog Island, we are directing our lorries to Jenkins Lane. It has caused a bit of a delay but we are doing everything we can so that it causes as little disruption as possible. It is a shame that it has happened today but no-one can predict these things.

Waste management firm Veolia, which operates a landfill site nearby in Rainham, confirmed that the fire did not affect their site.

[Updated: 16:00 04/08/2014]