The 124,000 square foot facility, at Hounsdown Business Park in Totton, is designed to handle 200,000 tonnes of waste per year. The site, originally a white goods warehouse, is currently operating at about 80-90% of its total capacity.
The MRF handles a variety of dry recyclables including: paper; cardboard; three grades of plastic, including PET, HDPE; metals including steel and aluminium; Tetrapak and glass. All waste that cannot be recycled is sent to an energy-from-waste (EfW) facility in Sundsvall, Sweden.
Contracts
The recyclables which are processed at the facility arrive in a commingled state and come from contracts with local authorities or waste management companies such as Enterprise. Material is sourced from collections in Plymouth, Cardiff, Monmouth, Essex and the West Midlands.
The 15 million pound facility was opened in October 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story) and was Swedish-owned SCAs first venture into handling multi-material streams.
To mark the two year anniversary of the facility SCA has opened a new education room to help raise awareness of recycling and recovery issues. The room is intended to be used as an additional resource to local authorities who wish to run recycling sessions with nearby schools.
Commenting on the launch of the education room Simon Barnes, business development director for SCA, said: The aim of the education room is to inform visitors of the key issues surrounding recycling today.
For more about SCAs MRF click here to read our special report.
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