O’Donovan to invest £15m in West London site
Construction waste management company O’Donovan Waste Disposal has announced plans to invest £15 million in a new processing facility in west London.
Close to Hanger Lane, the three acre Alperton site will boast an enclosed material reception and recycling facility that sorts and processes construction and demolition waste into recoverable and reusable materials, such as graded aggregate.
The investment in the new site expands O’Donovan’s footprint in London, with the firm operating several sites in north London. Around 50 jobs will be created across a range of operational roles, including drivers and waste handlers.
Jacqueline O’Donovan, managing director at O’Donovan Waste Disposal, said: “We have been looking for a suitable site for many years and this is in an ideal location for us. There are so many large, long-term development projects in London that there is a real need for increased recycling infrastructure like this. Construction has already started and we hope to be fully operational in late spring.”
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Top safety award for Biffa Municipal
Biffa’s municipal division has received a five star award from the British Safety Council (BSC) in recognition of its efforts to improve health and safety at work, and to protect the environment.
2015 is the third year in a row that the division has been awarded five stars for health and safety, and the first time it has received five stars for environmental management.
Biffa’s municipal division provides recycling, refuse, street and beach cleansing, and recycling centre management services for around 35 local authorities across Britain. It employs 3,000 staff who carry out around 3 million recycling and refuse collections from over 1.5 million households each week.
The BSC’s January audit made a detailed examination of Biffa’s operations across its South Bucks contract where it provides recycling and refuse collections. BSC auditors reviewed documentation, records and record-keeping, observed and interviewed staff, and scrutinised management systems and controls, emergency systems, reporting of accidents, near misses and ill health, and evidence of improvement.
Auditors commended the division for its focus on staff, as well as its processes and programmes to raise health and safety and environmental standards.
Municipal operations director David Maidman described the audit success as ‘a significant and important validation of our focus on making the workplace as safe as possible.’
He said: “Our 3,000 staff face very real and potentially lethal dangers every day, and we do everything we can to reduce those risks. The BSC’s five star audit is one way of ensuring that what we do is effective and appropriate.”
Chris Marchant, head of environment at South Bucks district council, added: “While it’s important that Biffa delivers its services efficiently and cost-effectively, it’s also very important that it does so safely. We’re delighted that our Biffa team helped secure this important award on behalf of the wider municipal division, and we congratulate them for showing that safe working and productivity can go hand in hand.”
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Cory to deploy two new barges along Thames
Cory Environmental has taken delivery of two new barges to be used on its River Thames operations, from McTays Shipbuilders of Merseyside.
The barges named ‘Ashburn’ and ‘Ashcroft’ will be used to transfer Incinerator Bottom Ash from Cory’s Riverside Resource Recovery Energy from Waste facility, situated on the banks of the River Thames in the London Borough of Bexley. Sealed containers of ash will be loaded on to the barges, where they will be taken to a processing plant in Tilbury and turned into construction aggregate.
Neil Caborn, Cory’s general manager said: ‘We are delighted to have received the first two barges from McTays. They have been specifically designed for our Thames operations to carry heavier payloads of ash compared to the existing fleet of waste barges.’
Lee Foster, chief operating officer of HS Ocean Group, owners of McTays also said: “The delivery into service of these first of class “Ash” barges is a milestone achievement for McTays, and we take great pride in handing them over to our client, Cory Environmental.”
The barges are the first of four, with the remaining two to be delivered at the end of April.
Subscribe for free