Longue Hougue Waste Transfer Facility ahead of schedule

Thursday 22 February 2018

The Waste Transfer Station currently being constructed at the Longue Hougue site is slightly ahead of schedule, and still on budget, the Deputy Project Manager has said.

Work is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2019, and the first waste will be sent to the facility this August to trial how it will be processed and to check everything is working.

Pictured: The new structure under construction at Longue Hougue

Gary Stephenson, an Operations Director at Geomarine, who have been undertaking the construction work on behalf of the States Trading Supervisory Board, said the work on the facility had been coming along well:

"We have had a few challenges with the weather recently, with high winds on the cladding phase we are working on at the moment - we have a limit to the windspeed when we can work on that. It looks like that might carry on slowing us down slightly up until March but we have actually been slightly ahead of schedule up to now so it shouldn't make much difference," he said.

"There was a lot of ground work before we started putting the structure up, but now as I said we are on the cladding phase - starting to make the whole thing wind and water tight - then we will put the concrete slabs in for the floor and then move onto M&E [Mechanical and electrical work]. It is going to get really busy when that starts, but everything is on target."

The main works began on site in July, and when it is complete, the transfer station will receive general household waste from parish collections, as well as commercial waste. A refuse derived fuel, or RDF, will then be produced from the materials, suitable for export to an off-island energy recovery facility to generate heat and electricity. 

Incoming waste will initially go through a mechanical shredding process, before undergoing magnetic separation to remove metals for recycling.  It will then be formed into bales, of approximately one metre cubes, wrapped in plastic film and loaded onto shipping trailers. 

On average, around four trailers a day will be exported to the UK, Monday to Saturday.  These will travel on existing freight services, using spare return capacity. 

Deputy Charles Parkinson, President of the States Trading Supervisory Board's political committee was speaking to local media on a visit yesterday. He said they were pleased with the progress that had been made:

"It is all going very well, and is ahead of schedule, so hopefully we will have it up and running for a trial period toward the end of the year. That will just be to make sure everything is going to run smoothly before we push it to 100% operation." 

The facility had a budget of £31.7m., and is designed to process 26,000 tonnes of residual waste, which is expected to decrease as recycling levels increase.  It also has capacity for 4,000 tonnes of food waste, and 2,500 tonnes of glass. 

Pictured top: L-R Deputy Project Manger Gary Stephenson and Deputy Charles Parkinson.