Non-hazardous waste will now be taken into Viridor’s adjacent state-of-the-art Energy Recovery Facility (ERF).
The £205 million facility has capacity to treat 300,000 tonnes of waste per year, sufficient to treat all of Oxfordshire’s residual municipal waste, Viridor claims.
The Ardley landfill has seen several interesting events in its lifetime, most significantly the discovery of dinosaur footprints. The tracks have been carefully covered using landfill engineering to ensure their preservation.
Ardley
The household waste recycling centre (HWRC), which Viridor operates on behalf of Oxfordshire county council, will remain open for local residents to use and is not affected by the closure of the Ardley landfill site.
Viridor has also announced the closure of its Wangford landfill site in Suffolk after 23 years of operation.
The site provided a destination for the disposal of North East Suffolk’s domestic and commercial waste, and closed its doors on March 31. It will now undergo a period of restoration which will be completed by the end of 2016. Waste will be re-directed to nearby Masons landfill, also operated by Viridor.
Wangford
Henry Austin, area unit manager for Viridor, said: “Both Ardley and Wangford landfill sites have been an important part of the waste infrastructure in their regions for many years. But it’s time to recognise that we should be looking at our non-recyclable waste as a resource that can be put to use.
“The closure of a landfill such as Ardley is an important milestone in the ongoing efforts to drive value from our waste hierarchy. Using residual waste to generate electricity is ensuring we’re maximising every available opportunity and will see counties like Oxfordshire further reduce its carbon footprint.”
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