Eyes for

Islington

visit to

London

Waste

Eco

Park

   

  On a bright Spring day with fresh blue skies and fluffy clouds skudding overhead on the breeze, there were no visible emissions from the chimney. All that could be seen at ground level was clean water steam, and little of that even. I value our little spaceship Earth no less than the next person, but look around you, see the fast food and drink litter, the dog mess, the chewing gum on every pavement. The graffiti. At the next level of scale, the fly-tipping. And of course the landfill. Just 8% is recycled while a healthier 20% contributes to electricity generation supplying 24,000 thousands home. The landfill is still 72%. In Britain, over the last 60-odd years we have not achieved safe and permanent disposal of all the nuclear waste from power generation and defence and medical processes. Yet over the same period we have virtually exhausted the more easily accessible North Sea oil and gas resources. The coal industry is marginalised yet we should be leading the world in clean coal fired stations. But even after forty years talking of tidal barrages it is still little more than hot air. The solution lies in your hands, use less, waste less, use everything more efficiently and when you have finished with resources make sure that they are properly disposed of at plants like these.
   

Edmonton in East London
  Dioxin limits at 0.07 of a nanogramme operate here

 

 

Integrated waste management solutions

 

98% of dust particles removed
  Recycle Energy Clinical EcoPark

 

 

Animated computer graphics of furnace processes

 

850 to 1200 degrees Celsius
  Animated computer graphics of flue cleaning processes

 

 

Control Room power generation lights and switches

 

Current emission limits
  Electricity generation in turbine hall

 

 

   

Bagged waste in seventy foot deep pits supply furnaces

 

Clinical bio-hazard
  Video monitoring of incoming waste and furnaces

 

 

Extracted ferrous metals for onward sale and re-processing

 

Tinned steel cans
  So that's where my fork went!

 

 

Polkacrest handles clinical waste

 

Residual ash damped down
  Even waste water is cleaned and re-used in flue washing
 

 
   

The huge grab crane
   

 

 

Seven boroughs of North London Waste Authority

 

Lifting to load furnace shoot
  Spare parts, better than an art gallery installation
   

   
   

All your black bag waste
   

     
 

 
 

Shafts of sunlight streak through the mist, like Kuniyoshi's rain at the Royal Academy. More interesting and useful than the turbine hall at Tate Modern.
 

 

© Brian Marsh, 8 April 2009 email initiative.cafe@btinternet.com

Link to Eco Park composting tour