In a departure from standard construction procedures, MRF specialist equipment supplier O.Kay Engineering was appointed to oversee the project. Construction was by Tilbury Douglas.
David Chambers, principal environmental health officer for Exeter city council, explained: “It was important that the facility was designed from the inside out. We felt that a recycling equipment manufacturer would be able to do this to ensure that the sorting process was correct from day one – the building housing the equipment was secondary to the process going on inside. It is quite unusual for a small company to be the main tenderer but with a MRF the important thing is the plant and the process, the building is the umbrella.”
The facility will help Exeter achieve its recycling target of 20% by 2003, the city's current rate is 10%. The city had a small MRF it used in the past which it opened in 1994 as a temporary facility, this will close when the new MRF opens.
The council is expanding its two-bin kerbside recycling scheme over the next two years to cover the whole city to provide material for the MRF. The scheme currently covers one-third of Exeter with the council providing each home with two wheeled bins – one green for plastic bottles, cans, newspapers and magazines, cardboard, textiles and foil and one grey for other refuse. The bins are collected on a fortnightly basis.
Eight-hour shift
Exeter city council is looking at contracting part-use of the facility out to other local authorities as the council will be able to sort all of the city’s recyclable waste in one eight-hour shift. The facility has a total capacity over two shifts of 24,000 tonnes but the council will only use a maximum of 9,000 tonnes when its kerbside collection scheme has been extended.
Mr Chambers added: “We kept expanding our MRF but realised that
we couldn't extend it any further. Devon has two other MRFs, one in Torbay and the other in Plymouth which is not enough capacity for the county, so we needed a third one.”
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