City fills a train with rubbish 6 days a week

SIX days a week, a train leaves Edinburgh bound for Dunbar, unloads its 500-tonne cargo and then heads back again ready for the next delivery.

But this is not a key trade route in some valuable commodity. In fact, it is what we value the least: the rubbish that we still simply throw away despite the current drive towards recycling.

Only on a Sunday does the constant stream of waste falter.

Most of it is packaging. The recyclable plastics, wood, metal and glass have already been removed while green waste is sent for composting, leaving the "recalcitrant" materials that defy our current methods of recycling and things like paper that is too mixed with other waste to be worth reusing.

Every year, Edinburgh City Council sends about 150,000 tonnes of waste to Dunbar to be landfilled. A further 50,000 tonnes is sent to a tip at Oatslie, Midlothian, and nearly 65,000 tonnes is recycled.

After the waste train arrives, its 39 containers, each packed with about 13 tonnes of rubbish, are taken off, with empty containers put back on for the next day's delivery.

The containers are then emptied out to be scrutinised for any waste that should not be there - Dunbar deals only with non-hazardous waste. Generally, only the odd gas cylinder is found.

The waste is then taken to the landfill itself - an old quarry - where it is tipped into sections about a quarter the size of a football pitch. The base is sealed with clay and plastic to prevent any material or liquid escaping and, at the end of every day, the waste is covered over with earth.

When a section is full, it is sealed with a plastic cap and holes are later drilled to extract methane gas, which is used to provide a nearby cement works with 3.5 megawatts of electricity - enough to power several thousand houses.

Barry Falgate, the landfill site's unit manager, says this system represents the state-of-the-art way of dealing with rubbish that cannot be recycled or re-used.

"Dunbar has always been ahead of its time in engineering and environmental aspects," he says. "It is only now that some sites are putting in lining, but we've been lining for ten years."

Since it opened in 1997, some 2.2 million tonnes of material have been dumped at Dunbar, which also takes waste from the Borders and East Lothian.

And in Mr Falgate's view, there is very little of value left in the rubbish sent to Dunbar. "It's mostly just packaging waste. We are all used to the way things are presented to us," he says.

"We have quite a bit of industrial and commercial waste: bits of plastic, pipes and wrapping that is contaminated - not in a hazardous way but so it cannot be recycled.

"About half is domestic waste, what people put in bin bags, but most of the recyclates like paper, cardboard, glass, cans and plastic bottles are taken out.

"What I see going in here, it's the best place for it. And as long as we look after it, there are no problems to the environment.

"We are helping give the final resting place to waste and we do it to the best of our ability.

"We'll always need landfill of some size, but maybe not at the rate we are landfilling now."

His company, Viridor, is also heavily involved in recycling and is Scotland's leading recycler of glass with a plant at Bonnyrigg, Midlothian.

Working at a landfill site might not be a dream job for many, but Mr Falgate says: "It's good. No two days the same."

If there is one type of litter he dislikes it is plastic bags. "They are a big pain for us. Plastic bags being plastic bags, they are quite light and tend to blow. But there is a litter net. We try to keep the site as tidy as possible," he says.

WASTE INTO HOT WATER

INCINERATING waste conjures up an image of smoke and a horrific stench, but in Shetland a new type of plant is changing perceptions.

Unlike many incinerators it does not produce electricity, but hot water that is fed along pipes to heat houses in Lerwick.

Jim Grant, waste services manager at Shetland Council, which runs the plant, said: "Our emissions are minimal. People that visit the plant here are amazed how clean it is.

"There is no dust, no smells and all the rest of it. We've been running seven years now and it's still in the same state it was in 2000."

He added: "People are making huge savings on their energy bills. It's worth something like £2 million to the economy in terms of the money business and households have saved and reinvested."

STREET SWEEPER 'SAD'

"I DON'T say anything, but you feel very sad." Tony Heredia enjoys his job sweeping Glasgow's Buchanan Street and Argyle Street, cruising the pedestrian zones at walking pace on his motorised sweeper.

But the 38-year-old Spaniard is dismayed by the pervasive attitude that it is perfectly acceptable to drop litter in the street.

Pointing to the steps leading up to the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Mr Heredia says: "People sit down there and when they finish what they are eating they throw away the paper.

"Why not stand and put the paper in the litter bin? It's only two metres away. I don't say anything but you feel very sad.

"It's cleaner in Spain. The law is stronger. If the police see you throw something on the ground, you pick it up.

But also people like a clean city. I don't like a dirty place."

WARDENS SEE CHANGE

A CIGARETTE filter bowls along in the wind and the off-white circles of flat, hardened chewing gum are ever-present on the streets of Edinburgh.

But environmental warden Paul Baxter,

backed up by the power to impose £50 fines for littering and £40 for dog fouling, is determined to help banish the scourge of litter of all kinds from the capital.

Asked if there is ever trouble, Mr Baxter replies "Oh yes", while tapping his stab-proof vest. "There was a spate of incidents last year which escalated to the point where one of our colleagues was shot with an air rifle," he says. "We had to look at forms of personal protection."

But he believes attitudes to litter are changing. "More people are intolerant now, who are prepared to shop their neighbours. Recycling... all that's in the news, it is changing a lot of people's attitudes."

'GOOD STUFF' DUMPED

HUGH Frew is regularly taken aback by what is considered to be surplus to requirements by people today.

Based at the Wardpark Cleansing Depot, Cumbernauld, one of Scotland's biggest recycling facilities, the North Lanarkshire Council cleansing department official says: "The quality of stuff coming in is amazing. There's a lot of good stuff. Some cookers are probably working when they come in."

But Mr Frew has seen at first-hand just how quickly the recycling revolution has taken off. Staring into a large skip nearly full with general waste, he says: "On a busy day, that would fill up in an hour. On weekends when there's good weather, people queue up the road.

"Some of the public don't take time - one or two just dump it all in one skip and run. But we are winning the battle with the majority of the public."