14 London gets advanced recycling and waste infrastructure
LONDON GETS ADVANCED RECYCLING AND WASTE INFRASTRUCTURE
One of London ’ s most significant public infrastructure projects in decades , the North London Heat and Power Project is currently under construction on a 16-hectare site at the Edmonton EcoPark in Enfield . The land lies alongside an arm of the River Lee Navigation and across the road from the Cooks Ferry roundabout , on which there once stood a pub where the likes of Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac played before stellar stardom .
The £ 1.2 billion project by public statutory body , North London Waste Authority ( NLWA ), is on behalf of two million residents across seven north London boroughs ; its purpose is to deal with the vast volumes of recycling and waste people throw away .
Major works on the project started in January 2021 when contractor , Taylor Woodrow , began building a £ 100million Resource Recovery Facility , with a capacity to manage 135,000 tonnes of recyclable material every year , as well as a public Reuse and Recycling Centre for north London residents and businesses to drop off their recycling . The aim is to help drive up north London ’ s household recycling rates from around 30 % to 50 %.
A priority for the project has been to minimise the environmental impact of design and construction . For instance , the position of the recycling facilities was chosen to maximise the benefits of solar energy generation to power the vast building and office facilities inside . An innovative piling technique was also used in the groundworks , reducing the embodied carbon in the original scheme design by 10 %.
The project has also seen the first ever application in the UK of ultra-low carbon concrete , which has been laid in a temporary facility . It reduces the carbon impact of the concrete by 70 %. The facility , which began operating in April , is required to deal with bulky waste recycling before the permanent buildings are complete and to allow the demolition of other infrastructure . It has been built with 5,000 tonnes of recycled or demolished material – an example of
Construction of the new community hub and visitor centre called EcoPark House