The majority of 10,000 tonnes of waste material left at a former waste facility in Derry had to be disposed of at a landfill site after a major fire at the site.
The disposal of the waste left at the site was among the new details that emerged at a meeting about the closure of local company Brickkiln Waste Management which was taken over by administrators on July 30 last year.
The closure was discussed at a meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Environment and Regeneration Committee.
Concerns were also raised at the meeting about the role of council in the closure.
Conor Canning, Head of Environment with the council, said council had procured and awarded a number of waste treatment contracts to Brickkiln Waste Management Limited.
These included the ‘the receipt and hauling of black bin residual wastes, receipt and treatment of source segregated wastes’.
He added council were contacted by the Northern Ireland Environment (NIEA) during late March last year and advised of issues relating to waste processing at both Brickkiln facilities at Electra Road, Maydown and at Heather Road, Creggan.
Mr Canning said NIEA advised council Brickkiln had not been processing waste since mid-March 2015 and waste quantities had exceeded site licence limits.
He said the NIEA then issued a number of notices ‘requiring them to bring the sites back into line with the site licence requirements’.
Mr Canning told the meeting that on Friday July 24 last year, Brickkiln Waste Limited informed council that they were no longer able to service the source segregated contract, at which point council ‘implemented contingency arrangements’ where waste materials were re-directed to RiverRidge Recycling.
He continued glass bottles and cans which are going to the Glassdon facility in Toombridge while dog fouling waste was taken to the Craigahulliar landfill site.
Mr Canning added that councils contracts with Brickkiln Waste Limited were based on wastes being processed, recycled, recovered and disposed of in consideration of the contract specifications.
He told the meeting that council were advised by the NIEA that Brickkiln Waste Limited had not been complying with the terms of the contracts as they not been processing wastes as detailed in the specification since mid-March 2015.
Mr Canning said after receiving this information, council suspended all payments to the company ‘pending a resolution of this matter’.
He said at the time the company entered administration ‘significant quantities of waste’ were left at the site.
The 10,000 tonnes of remaining waste was made up of both treated and untreated wastes from a number of councils as well as from Brickkiln’s own waste collection operations.
Mr Canning then told the meeting that on the day the site’s new owners River Ridge Recycling (RRR) took over, a major fire (pictured) broke out, which he said destroyed of the sheds storing the majority of the waste left at the facility.
The fire broke out on November 11 last year at the former Brickkiln site on the Electra Road in Maydown and burned for several days.
Mr Canning said all of the material which was stored in the shed destroyed by the fire had to be taken to a landfill site to be disposed of.
He added River Ridge Recycling ‘assumed full responsibility’ for all wastes on site included baled waste, which equated to some 2,400 tonnes.
“The owners have advised however that these bales are heavily contaminated and may also need to go direct to landfill,” he added.
He described council’s current situation as a ‘complex issue’ as council has already made payment in full with regard to some of the materials that are still on site or that were destroyed in the fire and taken to landfill.
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