Hadfield’s main site just outside Manchester as well as the Middlesbrough site run by its sister firm UK Wood Recycling – which feeds the Sembcorp Wilton biomass plant next door – are now both from today fully accepting low and high grade waste wood.
The wood recycling firm had, for the first time in its 35-year history, closed its gates to incoming low grade waste wood at both sites in July 2015 in order to “avoid enforcement action from the Environment Agency” over recent changes to material storage restrictions (see letsrecycle.com story).
Since the closure of its gates, the company said it has carried out its own independent fire tests and submitted a revised Fire Prevention Plan (FPP) to the Agency.
Managing director, Geoff Hadfield, said: “We have been carrying out our own set of fire tests and as a result have submitted revised fire plans to the EA, and have made changes to the sites in line with these plans. The plans also include significant scientific data that we believe makes the plans superior to the FPP guidance.”
The firm’s suppliers include several large local authority contracts, including its work with Viridor to treat 35,000 tonnes per year of waste wood from the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA), for which it agreed a five year extension in 2014.
Environment Agency
The Agency has faced criticism over waste stack size and distance regulations set out in FPP requirements in environmental permits, which the likes of the Wood Recyclers Association (WRA) and Tyre Recovery Association have described as “unworkable”.
Hadfield claimed that being forced to shut its gates due to the increase in waste wood volumes stored at the site over the summer would result in “several thousand tonnes” of waste wood being diverted to other outlets of sent to landfill.
However, the company’s third wood recycling site in Tilbury, Essex, was unaffected and has continued to receive waste wood as normal. The company also claims it has never exceeded the storage permits on any of its sites.
Meanwhile, the WRA in partnership with the Agency and the Chief Fire Officers Association undertook controlled fire tests on waste wood material earlier this month with the aim of gaining scientific evidence to feed into the Agency’s regulations (see letsrecycle.com story).
The Environment Agency is also currently consulting on the FPP proposals it previously published in March, setting out what it proposes to amend and what it intends to remain unchanged.
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