Thousands of tonnes of residual waste from households in Cambridgeshireare being sent to landfill following a mechanical failure at AmeyCespas mechanical biological plant at Waterbeach.
The facility, which has the capacity to process 200,000 tonnes of waste a year, is out of action following an incident on the evening of September 18, when the beam which holds the wheel used to turn the compost broke. Two staff members were one duty at the time, but no one was injured.
The firm is now working to get the plant up and running again, but no action can be taken until an investigation, which was undertaken by engineers, is complete.A report is expected to be finished by the end of October. AmeyCespa said that until it has received the results of the investigation, it cannot speculate on the reasons for the failure and the length of time operations will be suspended for.
This means that the 2,200 tonnes of residual waste sent to the plant each week by Cambridgeshire county council is being sent straight to landfill.It is going to asite operated by AmeyCespa which is also at Waterbeach.
Ordinarily, the MBT plant extracts recyclables from the residual using mechanical separation before breaking it down biologically. The process reduces the wastes mass by approximately 50%, with just the remaining compost like output sent to landfill.
In a statement issued earlier this week, the council said: AmeyCespa have made the council aware of a mechanical problem they have experienced at the MBT plant at Waterbeach. Engineers are currently on site and are investigating what has happened. We have a robust contract in place with AmeyCespa to ensure that, should situations like this occur, the services delivered to the communities of Cambridgeshire are protected and any additional costs to the tax payer are kept to an absolute minimum.
A spokesman for the council confirmed that the residual waste was being sent straight to landfill, but added that the council would be looking at other alternative options.
In May 2011 AmeyCespa revealed that it had to send more than 26,000 tonnes of Cambridgeshires residual waste to landfill following delays in the plants commissioning process (see letsrecycle.com story).
Failure
The composting hall in the MBT facility comprises of two lanes, each with separate giant wheels which turn the waste over a seven week period. Although one wheel remains unaffected by the mechanical failure, AmeyCespa said it will not run the other wheel until the expert report has been received.
A spokeswoman for the firm told letsrecycle.com: We have had experts in to investigate what happened. Because it is a complicated piece of machinery, until we get the reports back we are not operating the second wheel either. Until we know what caused it we cant be sure if it is safe to run both wheels.
Obviously the reason why we are not running the second wheel is we cant guarantee that the same problem is not going to happen again. Keeping our staff safe is our number one concern.
Meanwhile, the MBT plants sorting line, which removes recyclables from waste prior to the composting process, is also currently suspended, as the waste is automatically moved into the composting hall, and cannot operate as a stand-alone option. The firm said: As a matter of urgency, AmeyCespa is exploring the potential to install equipment which would allow these operations to recommence without diverting waste to the compost hall.
The machinery, which was manufactured by Kelag, was installed by contractor BAM Nutall. A spokesman for BAM Nuttall said: We acknowledge there is a problem and we are carrying out a thorough investigation as to the cause of any failure.
Facility
The MBT facility at Waterbeach was built as part of a 28-year, 731 million PFI contract between Cambridgeshire county council and Donarbon (later acquired by AmeyCespa) for waste treatment and disposal (see letsrecycle.com story).
The Waterbeach site also hosts an in-vessel composting (IVC) facility and a bulking up area for dry recyclables. AmeyCespa is in the process of building a materials recycling facility (MRF) which will eventually process the recyclables. The firm said that the rest of the site was operating as normal.
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