Shrewsbury household recycling centre - additional information

Introduction
Shropshire Council’s environmentally-friendly integrated waste management facility at Battlefield Enterprise Park, Shrewsbury, opened on 7 February 2005. Construction began in April 2004.

It will help Shropshire to implement its municipal waste management strategy, and was designed to emphasise the recovery of greater proportions of materials for recycling, composting and diversion from landfill.

The £4m facility comprises:

• Household Recycling Centre (HRC)
• Waste Transfer Station
- to which waste collected in the Shrewsbury area is brought by refuse collection vehicles
• Office building
• Materials Bulking Facility, which receives recyclable materials from local authority kerbside collections, recycling bank schemes and the HRC
• An area for receiving street cleansing waste.

The facility can handle up to 100,000 tonnes of waste per year. All waste brought to the site is stored, then bulked-up and transported to final treatment or disposal.

The facility combines functional, aesthetic and sustainable features. It raises the standard of public-accessible waste management sites by optimising ease of use within a clean, attractive and controlled indoor environment, with all waste-handling being undertaken undercover and out of sight. The facility shows that waste sites needn’t be perceived as dirty and polluting, but can be clean and attractive.

The facility is situated in an easily-accessible, clearly signed location on the outskirts of Shrewsbury.It was designed with a flexible layout and adaptable structure so that it could be extended for other waste treatment services in the future. A visitor room in the main office building caters for educational visits to the site by schoolchildren.

Waste handling features
All waste handling is undertaken in the 5200m˛, 14m high building. The facility design takes advantage of the natural slope of the ground, incorporating a split-level design for both public and commercial operations, and separating public and bulk waste-handling operations.

Up to 20 material types can be recycled at the HRC. Visitors drive through the building to deposit their waste using ‘portholes’ for garden waste, timber, cardboard, scrap metal, soil and rubble and non-recyclable waste, and smaller containers for glass bottles, cans, plastic bottles, textiles, household batteries and other recyclable materials. There is a special area for items segregated for re-use, and for bulky items such as fridges and cookers. There is separate storage for hazardous waste.

Environmental features
The new facility includes a number of environmentally-friendly measures to minimise its effect on the environment and its surroundings.

(1) Energy-efficient lighting in the main building will save 60 tonnes of CO2 per year and is complemented by south-facing roof lights to maximise use of daylight.

(2)Geothermal heating in the main office, incorporating over 300m of buried pipe, will save seven tonnes of CO2 per year.

(3) 870 tonnes of recycled aggregate was used for the road foundations.

(4) Rainwater is harvested and used for toilet flushing and washdown facilities, resulting in a further CO2 saving.

(5) The facility has been designed using Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) to mitigate any impact on an adjacent watercourse using a stormwater balancing pond, interceptors, buried stormwater attenuation tanks and a constructed wetland.

(6) The exterior was designed to present an attractive view from the neighbouring enterprise park, Battlefield village and Battle of Shrewsbury heritage site. The landscaping was designed to enhance ecology along the Battlefield Brook watercourse and to link with surrounding developments.

(7) The design incorporates tight controls on emissions to the environment, particularly odour, dust and bioparticulates. It includes automatic fast-open/close doors and provision to retrofit an air extraction and filtration system. This is particularly important as it is situated alongside a proposed Food Enterprise Park, where food processing and manufacturing companies will be located. This shows that well-designed waste facilities can sit alongside other sensitive developments.

(8) The bulking-up of materials will also greatly reduce the environmental, and financial, cost of transporting the waste.

Design and build
Principal design and contract management was by Enviros complemented by an architectural team from Mason Richards, main design and build contractor Dean & Dyball and detailed design by Halcrow.

Development of design features by regular inter-team liaison during design and construction achieved an efficient project and ensured that the facility was completed in time to allow a smooth transition from the previous site to the new facility.

An award-winning facility
In October 2005 the waste management facility at Battlefield won a prestigious national Award for Excellence in Recycling and Waste Management. It was named the winner in the category of ‘innovation in design of a waste management facility’.

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