Residual waste is the term being used for waste that we haven’t managed to separate out for reuse or recycling. In Oxfordshire it used to go to landfill. But now we have an amazing facility just outside Oxford called an Energy Recovery Facility (Ardley ERF). I was lucky enough to have a visit there earlier this week. The trucks that collect waste from our bins go straight to the facility, the waste is tipped into a massive (really massive) hopper. It is mixed by some huge grabbers controlled remotely by a skilled operative and then moved into the incinerators. It’s hugely high tech and most of the plant is to do with cleaning the air. Apparently nothing comes out of their tall chimneys except water vapour - and of course CO2. The residue from the burning is used as aggregate in road building, and the finer ash is made into building blocks. The best thing is that they recover energy and make electricity. As the educator at the ERF was at pains to point out - WE STILL MAKE TOO MUCH WASTE! And we could be reducing, reusing and recycling an awful lot more. But at least in Oxfordshire we are doing something more sensible with it. See this Virador video for a quick peek of the landfill site. This shows how another Virador ERF works.

Kim Polgreen