The facility cost 640,000 to install and includes sorting equipment for materials including paper, card, metals, wood and textiles.
The bulk of the waste processed at the MRF comes from Household Waste Recycling Centres operated by the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) while some trade waste will also be processed. Previously this material was sorted in the open air by hand.
A range of different technologies feature in the new enclosed facility including screens, conveyors and magnets for sorting mixed waste as well as an air knife system to remove contaminants from the waste stream.
A team of recycling operatives will still manually remove items from the conveyor into segregated bins for recycling. A total of thirteen staff work at the facility including eight pickers, three machine operatives, one driver and one additional staff member.
Opening
Development work started on the north London facility in January 2012, with the final works completed in April.
The MRF was officially opened by David Sargent, managing director of the LondonWaste, and councillor Clyde Loakes, chair of the NLWA, last week (May 24).
Speaking at the launch, Mr Sargent said: This upgraded centre will make it easier to segregate and recycle more of the waste in a simple to use and safe, enclosed environment. We look forward to delivering increased recovery of recyclable material.
LondonWaste
LondonWaste is owned by NLWA and the company is responsible for managing household waste from the seven north London boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest.
The company became a fully-owned subsidiary of the NLWA after the waste authority bought waste management firm SITA UKs 50% stake in November 2009 (see letsrecycle.com).
The 43-acre EcoPark site in the London borough of Enfield also houses composting and energy-from-waste services used primarily to treat waste collected from the councils involved in the NLWA.
The LondonWaste EcoPark facilities are likely to be involved in plans for the NLWAs long term waste management contract for which two bidders are left a consortium of Spanish waste firm FCC alongside Swedish engineering firm Skanska and Veolia Environmental Services (see letsrecycle.com story). The authority currently handles around 900,000 tonnes of waste per year.
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