Poole's new £5m waste recycling centre to open (From Bournemouth Echo)

Poole's new £5m waste recycling centre to open

12:17pm Wednesday 21st November 2012 in News By Diana Henderson

Poole’s brand new £5million household waste recycling centre is due to open to residents on Monday.

After transferring to a temporary site at Hatch Pond while the Nuffield Road centre was revamped, it will re-open on time and under budget.

Completely rebuilt it is a drive-on, split-level site where residents will be able to queue off the road, which has previously caused problems to traffic on the Nuffield Industrial Estate.

“We have improved the traffic flow and made things a lot more easy to use,” said Shaun Robson, Borough of Poole’s head of environmental and consumer protection services.

Residents will drive through the one-way system, drop larger items such as white goods at the end of the site and drive up a ramp to reverse into one of 15 bays to dump items in skips separated into garden waste, wood and timber, cardboard and paper, landfill and scrap metal.

Notices implore residents not to dump any items that could be recycled into the skips that go to landfill.

“One of the main things is to maintain the high levels of recycling and divert as much as possible away from landfill,” said Mr Robson.

The old site received around 270,000 visits a year and now that it does not have to close to allow waste to be removed as the old arrangement did, there would be longer opening hours and a late night for workers.

Residents requiring help to unload cars will be encouraged to go on a Wednesday when there will be more staff available.

There is also a 2.1m height restriction and vans over that height will only be accepted on that day.

Everything the town’s residents throw into bins – 95,000 tonnes a year – is collected and taken to the undercover waste transfer station in the centre where there are bays for garden waste, recycling and landfill waste.

This will be cleared daily but the transfer station shed is large enough to store three days worth if necessary, such as at times when landfill sites are closed due to high winds.