Environment Agency opens public consultation over changes to composting site near Bedford

The Environment Agency has opened a public consultation as a composting site near Bedford is seeking to increase its capacity.

Growing Beds Recycling Services has submitted an Environmental Permit variation application both to increase its size and to include a non-hazardous waste wood treatment activity at its organics & biomass recycling facility in Ravensden.

The company’s current permit allows it to compost waste under aerobic conditions in an open system for up to 32,000 tonnes per annum.

The site is looking to add land to the permitted area and to enable it to increase the throughput of the site to 49,000 tonnes per annum.

The application also proposes to add non-hazardous wood shredding activity pretreatment for incineration.

The applicant said the site has operated a wood shredding activity “for a number of years” with the “full consent” of the local Environment Agency officer, and this application is to “formalise” that activity.

The 49,000 tonnes limit will be split across the composting and woodshredding activity.

There is no proposed maximum for either process other than the totalthroughput of the site.

This, the applicant said, is to allow for “operational flexibility and seasonality” of each activity.

The applicant said incoming green waste is delivered via a weighbridge, and inspected in the reception area to check for non-conforming items.

The accepted material is then shredded and placed in windrows (piled in rows) for sanitation, stabilisation and maturation to produce a compost.

More information on this application can be found on the consultation’s webpage.