My experience in waste management was gained as a Site Manager (1988) for Wimpey Waste in Lisburn, Co Down. This position included responsibility for the Castle Robin Landfill accepting 150,000 tonnes per annum of commercial/industrial and domestic waste. In 1990 I was promoted to Area Landfill Manager controlling additional facilities such as Green Road Landfill and a MRF. In 1992 UK Waste purchased Wimpey Waste during which time my role expanded further to include an additional landfill in Mallusk and several collection vehicles. By the end of 1999, I was managing three Landfills, including one in Scotland ( accepting hazardous waste), a liquid waste treatment facility, collection fleet and a MRF. The Green Road and Mallusk landfills disposed of approximately 250,000 tonnes of domestic, commercial, industrial and difficult waste streams for seven local authorities and a number of third party hauliers. At its peak, the sites were the largest disposal per capita in Northern Ireland managing approximately 43% of the province’s domestic waste stream. Within the commercial waste category the landfill managed a number of different waste types as detailed below:

Mammalian bone meal
Clinical waste Class ‘E’
Sewage sludge
Sewage filter cake
Carbon black
Sterilised clinical waste
Contaminated Soils
Condemned meat products

In 2000, Biffa purchased UK Waste and my role changed to that of Regional manager, managing 6 Landfills in North East England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

As mentioned above I was involved in managing a leachate treatment plant at the Green Road site. The treatment plant pre-treated the Landfill leachate prior to transfer to a suitable Department Sewage plant. Previous leachate discharge had been carried out under a consent in accordance with the Water Act. Treatment was required as the Leachate strength increased to such a concentration that it was no longer able to be directly discharged due to the amounts of organic waste disposed (bone meal and condemned meat). The plant required the digestion of ammonia in aeration to reduce the BOD, COD and NH3. The Leachate was considered a hazardous waste meeting two of the criteria under the Special Waste Regulations.

The treatment plant consisted of a 10,000 litre holding tank where through use of activated sludge and air blowers the |Leachate could be managed to comply with the consent. The Discharge consent permitted 100m3 of Leachate discharge per day, however this was augmented by tinkering to a local sewage treatment works.

On the Houghton Le Spring landfill based in NE England I was responsible for an aggregates recycling operation. This process involves the use of flat bed screeners, trammels and crushers to make various grades of sub base aggregate and soils.

In Northern Ireland I assisted several local authorities to establish two waste transfer stations. One of the facilities was for Ards Borough Council accepting primarily domestic waste, however there were waste inputs from the public as the site was used as an ‘overspill' facility for the council Civic Amenity Site. Therefore the types of waste from the site were a mixture of domestic and bulky civic amenity waste. This arrangement also changed the way the site was managed as the safety of the public was paramount given the large vehicle movements. The site was served by two bulk ejectors being loaded by a loading shovel. It was also necessary to alter waste acceptance and storage methods in order to segregate the public from the more ‘intensive' operations.

I also managed operations on a transfer station combining wastes from several sources. The site not only dealt with domestic waste within Newtownabbey Borough Council but also accepted stored and transferred clinical waste. The clinical waste was accepted as the collection vehicles could not access the Green Road Landfill Site. The Landfill site was situated at a high level in comparison to the entrance road and therefore small box vehicles would cause congestion problems for other more able customer vehicles. It was decided to use the Doagh Transfer Station as a point where clinical waste could be stored for transferral to the landfill using rollonoff vehicles. The clinical waste (yellow bags) was accepted on site and transferred to waste containers which could be lifted on to the rollonoff. Of course the bagged waste was manually unloaded but after several weeks I arranged for the clinical waste to be collected and transferred in wheeled Euro-bins to avoid contact.