£20k a Month Added to Blaenau Gwent Waste Bills includes Waste Haulage- South Wales Argus

2:50pm Friday 9th September 2011

BLAENAU Gwent will have to pay an extra £20,000 a month to have its waste dumped in Swansea, the council has revealed.

The Argus exclusively reported on Wednesday how Blaenau Gwent council is having to send waste to NPT Recycling, in Swansea, after its Silent Valley site in Cwm was shut down by the Environment Agency.

At the time, the council refused to disclose how much waste is being transported and how much it is costing.

NPT Recycling Ltd confirmed it had made an arrangement with Silent Valley to dispose of 350 tonnes of domestic waste a week between now and April.

The council released a statement following the Argus’ report, confirming Silent Valley had entered into this contract and that this would cost an extra £5.40 per tonne of waste. This includes haulage costs, the bulking of waste and gate fees.

The contract up until the end of March would therefore cost an extra £139,500 (or £20,000 a month) above the council’s original budget of £1,607,025.

The waste is not being taken to the Swansea site by council lorries, but by articulated lorries from a haulage company which can each carry around 20- 23 tonnes per load.

The cost has been identified as one of the “significant cost pressures” faced by the council, which aims to save £9m over the next four years.

But a council spokeswoman said savings could be made if it remained with NPT Recycling beyond next March as the waste is no longer going directly to a landfill site and so the council would avoid any increase in landfill tax.

She said the council, with its partner Torfaen council, was currently working on obtaining a contract for treating and disposing waste which would start in 2013.

Silent Valley was shut down last month, after traces of toxins such as mercury, nickel and ammonia were found leaking from the waste into groundwater.

Environment Agency Wales said there was no risk to the public, but stopped the site taking waste. It is not clear when the site will re-open.

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FIRMS would pay a quarry owner in Paignton hundreds of pounds to tip

FIRMS would pay a quarry owner in Paignton hundreds of pounds to tip construction waste at the site, a trial has been told.
Alexander Sim, 56, who ran Alex Sim Plant Hire, had lorries arriving several times a day to use the Yalberton Tor Quarry.
Many of them would bring waste from major construction projects in the Bay.


Sim denies 10 counts of illegally using the quarry as a waste tip.
He claims the deliveries were used to build an access ramp for the quarry. Illegal waste was not accepted, he said.
The third day of the trial heard more prosecution evidence, some of it about the nature of construction waste and whether it could be legally dumped.
The trial has already heard metal, wood, tyres and other illegal materials were found by Environment Agency investigators.
The jury was told haulage firms would bring lorry-loads of waste to the quarry, have it weighed and tipped over the edge.
The Environment Agency claims some of this waste was not suitable to be dumped at the site.
Invoices produced in court showed Sim charged about £5 a tonne for the tipping.
One witness, Kenneth Wade, of Bay Skips, said his firm dumped clean soil at the site for at least five years from 2000.
He said inappropriate waste, such as plastic and metal, was not taken to the quarry. Bay Skips, he said, would take up to 60 loads a month, each weighing six tonnes.
Cross examined by Adam Vaitilungham QC, he said the dump was 'professionally run' and had strict rules about what type of waste was tipped.
"Mr Sim made it known to staff that contaminated waste was totally unacceptable," he said.
Sim denies 10 counts of operating an illegal installation except under a permit and failing to complete signed waste transfer notes.
The trial continues.
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