Restrictions
The ongoing work continues at the landfill which has now had restrictions imposed on it by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). This involved SEPA last week suspending the landfilling of non-hazardous waste at the Patersons site which is in the Broomhouse area of the city. SEPA said that this restriction meant that the operator could not accept any more non-hazardous waste for landfill on to the site until it had assessed, identified and implemented all necessary measures to ensure that its waste operations are carried out “without offensive odours being detectable beyond its site boundary”.
Chris Dailly, head of environmental performance at SEPA, acknowledged that the company had been carrying out actions relating to the landfill gas infrastructure and had been meeting with SEPA regularly. He said: “Local residents are unlikely to notice an immediate reduction in odour impact. This is because a range of actions are likely to be required to be taken by the operator to ensure that ongoing odour management is effective.”
Severe weather
Patersons of Greenoakhill said that the company accepted that “operational challenges” at Greenoakhill, linked primarily to severe weather condition in November and December, have resulted in the release of gas odours from the landfill site. Weather in the Glasgow area was exceptionally wet in the last part of 2022 with the region also seeing some extremely cold weather which is thought to have hampered engineering work.
The company has now emphasised that “all parties involved with operating Greenoakhill Landfill are focused on resolving the odour issue as quickly as possible”. And, local community groups have been appraised of the current situation.
Infrastructure
In a statement, Patersons of Greenoakhill explained to letsrecycle.com that the delayed installation of landfill gas collection infrastructure including horizontal and vertical gas collection wells is currently taking place and this activity is due for completion in February.
The statement continued: “Once this additional infrastructure is commissioned, the site will return to a position where the landfill gas is appropriately contained, recovered and processed through the electricity generating gas combustion engines located on site.”
Woodland
Greenoakhill landfill is a 4MW facility generating 30,000MWh of electricity per annum. Greenoakhill landfill is being progressively restored to an urban woodland open to the general public. 48 hectares of land, planted with over 100,000 new trees, have already been released for use by the local community for recreational use (more information HERE).
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