North East & Yorkshire Premier Construction

Yorwaste – New Transfer Station

Yorwaste
Written by Roma Publications

Yorwaste – New Transfer Station

Yorwaste

A brand new waste transfer station on the outskirts of York is ready to accept waste after a £3 million construction project undertaken by waste management company Yorwaste. Situated at Yorwaste’s Harewood Whin facility, the new station will handle 75,000 tonnes of waste each year.

Waste that comes to the station from collection vehicles will be bulked up by Yorwaste before being taken for its final disposal. From early spring 2018 this final destination will be the Allerton Waste Recovery Park currently under construction. When operational the new facility will receive all household waste from North Yorkshire and York.

Construction on the waste transfer station began in October 2016 and was finished in June 2017, ready to start operating in July. Currently, all waste from the York area currently comes to the landfill at Harewood Whin. This new transfer station will serve waste coming from the York and Selby area.

The new station is made up of a steel portal frame with a 450ml thick concrete wall running around the inside. It is also fitted with a state-of-the-art fire prevention and protection system as Geoff Derham, Group Operations Director for Yorwaste, outlined when he spoke to Premier Construction.

“I think the most impressive thing about this building is the £600,000 worth of fire suppression that has been included. Fairly early on the design phase of this project the environment agency produced their new fire prevention guidance. This was very detailed about what a waste transfer station should do to minimise the risk of fire.

“We have a very impressive twin-diesel engine pump sprinkler system inside with very sensitive fire alarms. We’ve got surface water captured into lagoons on the site to hold for fire water plus 600 tonnes of water in tanks for the sprinkler system so it can charge straight away at high pressure. In addition we also have a tank ready to be used by the fire service should the need ever arise. It may not look it but the fire prevention measures included in the building really are state-of-the-art.”

Construction of the new building proved to be a smooth process. The main challenges on the project revolved around the location of station as Geoff explained:

“It’s right in the middle of our operational site. Managing the traffic flow of a busy site with up to 250 large vehicle movements on and off site each day was a major challenge. Ourselves and main contractor Seymour have done a fantastic job getting it sorted.

“The other issue related to the fact the site is a former World War Two RAF base. Yorwaste has operated a landfill here since the early 1980s. Since then the site has grown with bits bolted on, people have built drains and put cables in. The challenge for us was ensuring the construction project fully integrated into the existing site infrastructure. We had to check for contamination from the RAF days but the real challenge was integrating the services.”

Geoff added:

“This is the biggest capital project the company has been involved with. We’re very proud of this state-of-the-art facility, that will provide waste services in the area for many decades to come.  It shows we’re committed to maximising the benefits associated with delivering waste to Allerton Park. It’s the jewel in the crown of our transfer station network and is something we’re rightly proud of.

“I think anyone else in the UK who is thinking of building a waste transfer station should come and look at our site to see what we’ve done, particularly in terms of design construction and fire prevention.”

Yorwaste is the biggest waste management company in North Yorkshire. Owned by North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council, Yorwaste and its sister company SJB Recycling manages over half a million tonnes of waste per year and employs over 300 people. Its guiding principle is to provide customers with sustainable, innovative and economical waste management solutions.

Yorwaste’s sister company, SJB Recycling, is one of the UK’s largest providers of green waste composting services. For more information on the company please visit yorwaste.co.uk.

 

 

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