Waste left overnight

As the busy Summer months approach the new layout of Waldo Road Tip will be put to the test as residents of Bromley clear out their homes and start full scale gardening, and generating greater quantities of waste. The new recycling layout at Waldo Road Tip has been hailed by Onyx and Bromley as a much more efficient way for sorting the waste into categories - and this does seem to be the case.

The waste is initially sorted by the residents and deposited into separate containers i.e. General waste, cardboard, rubble etc. Once these have been filled these containers are picked up and taken over to the main tipping shed where they are emptied onto the floor, where they are then scooped up by the mechanical shovels and put into the back of the bulk carrier lorries to be taken away. This does seem to mix the waste up again - but I'm sure Onyx have a means of sorting somehow.

It does seem that Onyx close the green container section at the end of each day to clean the area which means that the waste is deposited straight into the tipping shed.

The new system of depositing waste at the site, though better from a recycling perspective seems to have caused more traffic to be queuing in Homesdale Road, where over the weekend of 22nd / 23rd April the queue to actually enter Waldo Road was several hundred meters in both directions not only making it impossible for traffic to pass along Homesdale road but also causing chaos to bus timetables.

Apart form excessive traffic, it seems that Onyx are also struggling to clear the site at the end of the day as the below pictures show, so as Summer approaches it doesn't bode well for peak periods, and interestingly section 5.4.5 of the Waste Disposal Licence granted to the site states:

"No waste shall be stored to a height exceeding 3 metres in the main tipping area and 2 meters in the Civic Amenity area as shown on drawing Reg. No. LWRA/318038 holder's no. D+C(S)/4275/51B. A line shall be marked and maintained on the interior facing wall of the tipping shed to indicate this height."

A local resident has written to the Environment Agency about these continual breaches of the Waste Disposal Licence - See transcripts of e-mails

Congratulations to Onyx who have managed the whole May bank holiday weekend without storing waste on the site over their legal limit overnight (other than a section in the very corner of the tipping shed). This is a great improvement from Onyx and we hope they keep it up.

Alas three days were all Onyx could manage, it appears my message above was a little premature - see below