Comprehensive Waste Services
In addition to waste collection, Cumbria Waste Group also provides other waste services as seen below.
Recyclate Processing
Cumbria Waste Group provides a range of recyclate processing services.
We have over 25 years’ experience of advising our customers on the best way to recycle the material they produce as a business.
Primarily, the waste we recycle on behalf of our customers consists of metal cans/tins, plastic bottles, cardboard, paper and glass.
Our state-of-the-art recycling facilities enable us to sort and separate the material we receive. Some customers segregate their waste themselves before it arrives at our sites. This makes it even easier to process because the ‘cleaner’ the material, the more value it has.
We can also provide on-site balers for those who generate large amounts of waste. These balers can help to reduce transport costs because we need to make less vehicle movements to collect waste.
The majority of recyclates we process can be turned directly back into their original product, so a plastic bottle can become a plastic bottle again. This is an excellent example of closed loop recycling.
Household Waste Recycling Centres
Cumbria Waste Group manages a network of Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC) across Cumbria.
We manage the centres on behalf of Cumberland Council and Westmorland & Furness Council. They help to maximize local waste diversion for the local authorities.
Our sites are managed by friendly, motivated and trained staff who are on hand to help local residents when disposing of/recycling various materials.
As well as accepting residual waste, garden waste and basic dry recyclables, they now also provide many more recycling options for an ever-increasing range of materials.
They include materials such as batteries, electrical equipment, textiles, paint, engine and cooking oil, printer cartridges and lightbulbs.
The recycling rates at our HWRC’s are high, with some achieving well over 70%. But we are always striving to improve this further. This means the visitors to the sites can have confidence that the effort they have made to segregate and recycle their will have a positive environmental impact.
Here is a full list of the HWRCs we manage in Cumbria.
Please be aware that there may be shorter opening hours during winter months.
Contaminated Land
There are around 400,000 hectares of contaminated land across the UK. Much of this land has the potential to be re-used for commercial, or other purposes.
Businesses or organisations wishing to buy these brownfield, or former industrial, sites, are required by law to design a contaminated land management programme.
Cumbria Waste Group has decades of experience in the effective management and remediation of contaminated sites. We have been involved in many of the major construction projects undertaken in Cumbria, South Scotland and the surrounding areas.
We provide expert advice and consultation on contaminated land remediation services to a wide variety of customers,
We work with these customers to carry out site analysis and identify any contaminants that may be present.
Our in-house team of chemists can test contaminants, such as oils, tars, asbestos, gases and chemical substances. Significantly, this means our clients know exactly what they are dealing with.
We then advise and help develop the most appropriate site clearance and remediation plans.
This plan includes compliantly managing all the waste removed from the site, including aggregates, liquids and also recyclates.
If would like to find out more about our contaminated land remediation service please call or email for your free, no-obligation waste audit and quotation.
Landfill
It is important to stress that our landfill sites are much more than just a hole in the ground to bury waste. The sites we operate at Cumbria Waste Group are highly advanced, engineered and managed.
We design and plan them so we only tip waste into certain ‘active’ areas of the site which helps to control the way the waste breaks down, making it easier to manage the landfill gas and leachate produced.
We are able to control and collect the landfill gas and use it to generate electricity through turbines. This produces 5MW of renewable electricity at our sites. This green electricity then goes back into the national grid to help power approximately 5,000 local businesses and homes.
Once a site reaches its capacity, we manage and restore it. This means it can be of use again in the future for agriculture, amenities or nature conservation.
Closed Landfill Site Management
One of the waste services we provide at Cumbria Waste Group is closed landfill site management.
This is important because as waste breaks down it produces methane gas and leachate. If we don’t manage this correctly it can cause an environmental hazard.
Site levels also settle as waste breaks down, so we need to monitor and maintain them.
We provide closed landfill site management at our own sites, but also on behalf of other clients across Cumbria.
We devise working plans for each site. In addition, we monitor ground, surface water and gas and send monthly and annual reports to the Environment Agency and our customers. The Environment Agency carries out twice monthly inspections.
We also:
- Sink boreholes on and off site to monitor leachate and methane gas
- Collect water run-off from the sites and use it to irrigate nearby land, which reduces the amount of leachate
- Collect methane gas from site wells and burn it in controlled gas flare stacks
- Import good quality soil to seal the sites, which prevents methane from escaping, maintains the site levels and helps keep water out
- Sow grass seed to provide good grazing and treat any leachate irrigated onto the sites.
We also carry out restoration of closed landfill sites. This can entail planting trees, wildflower meadows and creating wetland habitats, all of which have long-term environmental benefit.
If would like to find out more about our closed landfill site management service please call or email for your free, no-obligation waste audit and quotation.
Contact the experts at Cumbria Waste Group for comprehensive domestic or commercial waste services.