Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway Area Waste Plan

Regional waste management across the area has to be taken into account in seeking an integrated approach. Details for the four authorities are below:

Dumfries and Galloway
The local authority has seven licensed landfill sites of which three are operational in terms of accepting MSW (the other four are licensed and are in post closure and restoration stage, taking inert waste only by appointment.) This gives a theoretical handling capacity of 200,000 tonnes per annum but only up to 150,000 tonnes per annum is currently being used. It is the council's intention to close and restore the main site in the east of the authority area (Locharmoss) as soon as practicably possible. Aucheninnes, near Dalbeattie, will require re-engineering to meet containment requirements of the licence should it be extended to become the authority's main site. The third active site at Galdenoch, Leswalt, Stranraer is in the west of the authority area. It is a relatively small site and accepts waste from Wigtown area. This site will also require re-engineering should it be extended.

There are 19 sites currently on the register. The majority of them are either closed or closing, or only offer a small-scale part-time facility for inert waste. Effectively, Phase II of Auchenlosh, with an annual licence capacity of 25,000 tonnes per annum, is the only commercially operating site in these parts.

On the recovery side there are eight licensed facilities. Seven of these are scrap metal recyclers and one, R Frazier's of Dumfries (now MIREC), operates a major recovery and recycling operation for computer equipment and telephones.

There are three accredited reprocessors (in terms of the Producer Responsibility Obligations for Packaging Waste) namely, Armstrongs Waste Management with accreditations for wood and for paper, Dumfries Plastics Limited and Plastic Technology Services Limited (dealing with plastics).

East Ayrshire
The local authority does not operate any sites. There are currently six facilities, three of them are small part time operations. The other three provide the major part of the area's capacity for dealing with active waste. Together they provide a waste handling capability of approximately 2,500 tonnes per day and disposal capacity of about 50,000m³ per annum in the local authority area.

The council is in the last year of a contract with a private contractor for the transfer loading and disposal of its municipal waste. All waste is disposed of in Garlaff Landfill. The council has invited tenders for a new waste transfer/treatment and disposal contract for a 15-year period commencing in 2003. The successful bidder will be required to demonstrate that the proposals are consistent with the finalised version of the AWP and in turn allow the council to meet its statutory obligations in respect of the EU Landfill Directive.

It should be noted that Craignaught Landfill Site operates a significant composting process and that Garlaff Landfill Site is commissioning a landfill gas energy recovery plant.

The clinical waste incinerator at Crosshouse, which used to take all the Health Board waste for the area, does not meet requirements to burn special waste. It has subsequently been decommissioned.

The only licensed recovery facilities are two metal and scrap metal dealers.

North Ayrshire
North Ayrshire has a tradition of self-sufficiency in their waste-management arrangements. Currently, waste disposal is carried out at a landfill site at Brodick, serving the Isle of Arran and landfill site at Shewalton, Irvine serving the mainland and the Island of Cumbrae. As detailed in the SWMBA 2001, the landfill site at Shewalton is intended to operate until August 2005. Thereafter, it is proposed to make use of another area of Shewalton for which planning permission is already in place that should facilitate another 8 to 10 years of landfill (allowing EC landfill diversion requirements). This latter site will be a fully contained site and will require to be the subject of an Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Application to SEPA. Consultants have already been tasked with obtaining the necessary information to facilitate such an operation. North Ayrshire Council has recently gained planning permission for a major site at Bogside near Irvine, which would meet the long-term disposal needs for mainly inert waste.

There are five private licensed facilities with a total licensed waste handling capacity of 104,000 tonnes per annum within the local authority area (which equates to a cubic capacity of almost three million cubic metres).

There are no licensed recovery facilities operating in the area. It should be noted that there is one accredited reprocessor, (in terms of the Producer Responsibility Packaging Waste Regulations) namely Rockware Glass.

North Ayrshire also has a new clinical waste incineration facility. This facility, operated by Hamilton Clinical Waste Limited, has an operational capacity of 25 tonnes per day. This equates to a capability of approximately 9,000 tonnes of clinical waste per year. At Meadowhead, near Irvine, there is a proposed sludge drying pyrolysis and gasification plant with a proposed daily throughput of 1,000 tonnes of sludge per day (giving it an annual handling capacity of some 360,000 tonnes per annum). In addition, this facility proposes to take sludge from Stevenston and Inverclyde Waste Water Treatment Works.

South Ayrshire
The local authority does not operate any landfill sites of its own, although it does operate one licensed waste transfer station and six licensed civic amenity sites within its area. South Ayrshire Council disposes of the majority of its municipal wastes at Garlaff Landfill Site near Cumnock, through a 15-year contract agreement with Barr Environmental of Heathfield, Ayr. Wastes arising in the south of the district are currently disposed of at Straid Landfill Site, and Tarbolton landfill site is also used for some limited disposal.

The council's civic amenity sites are provided with separate skips and containers for the deposit of garden waste, wood, metals, glass, paper, cardboard, textiles, oil, etc., which are all passed on for recycling. In addition, the council provides a number of glass and can recycling banks strategically located throughout the district. The council has also introduced an extensive waste-minimisation project involving the distribution and promotion of home-composting bins to householders within the district.

There are currently two private licensed landfill sites within South Ayrshire, at Tarbolton Moss and at Straid Landfill Site, Lendalfoot. There is one licensed metal recovery facility at Ayr Harbour and one licensed waste transfer station at Saltpans Road in Ayr.

Civic Amenity and Recycling Facilities
All the local authorities are committed to providing a civic amenity network to serve the needs of their individual communities. Likewise, all of the authorities are committed to innovating and trialing different recovery/recycling and composting operations.

Waste Collection Systems
All the local authorities operate a mixed household and commercial waste collection service and have standardised their collection systems on 'wheeled' bins (garden refuse collection, special lifts, etc., have not been standardised). This traditionally provides the most effective means of quickly and safely gathering large quantities of waste without the labour-intensive requirements of sack or manual bin systems. A few such systems are retained in special localised circumstances.

Full details of the methods and costs of operating these services are best found in the Audit Commission's Report on value for money in local authority waste collection system services, entitled 'Benchmarking Refuse Collection' published in April 2000.

The costs shown in Table 1.5 below are taken from that report. They include an element of commercial collection undertaken by the local authorities, but still give an insight to the extremely cost-effective nature of their current operations.