The waste management company was awarded a six year waste disposal contract with Northamptonshire county council last year and has started composting this month.
The facility will initially have the capacity to process up to 10,000 tonnes of green waste. This will come from the ten recycling centres in the area managed by Northamptonshire county council, which serves 350,000 households. A small portion will also come from the district councils.
The contract requires Northamptonshire has to provide sufficient tonnage of green waste to produce 3,000 tonnes of compost a year for SITA to sell under the Apex brand. Should Northamptonshire fail to provide sufficient tonnage it would face additional charges.
Operations began earlier this month and site manager Sean Mattee, said “We haven't been open for long but we've already taken a few hundred tonnes. It's going well so far.”
Northamptonshire is hoping to extend the composting operations on the extra space available at the back of the site in order to compost 25,000 of green waste from next year. Planning permission for this is still being looked at.
The green waste, which includes tree loppings, grass cuttings and hedge clippings, is shredded, formed into large mounds approximately three meters high and left to break down naturally to form compost.
After 16 weeks the green waste is turned into compost which will be sold through the Apex partnership involving SITA, Cleanaway and Onyx. The compost is stocked by B&Q; and Homebase. It is quality controlled using SITA's Management and Auditing System for compost (MASC).
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