Visit to Recycling Plant at Cumbernauld 23 March 2011
Scottish Water Horizons In Vessel Composting (IVC) System and Anaerobic Digestion Plant (AD Plant), Cumbernauld.
A fine body of men (and one women) are duly kitted out ready for the site tour.
Report and photographs by Alasdair Meldrum
A quick cup of coffee and a bacon roll courtesy of Alan Meikle at the Horizon Hotel set us up for our trip. Having been to the site before I had no need for the maps and directions kindly provided by Lorna, however our car got slightly engrossed in the road works on the M90 and did a small tour to arrive at the site slightly later than the others!
We were met on the site by Kristine Leitch who gave us a brief introduction and a safety briefing prior to getting us kitted out with hard hats and hi viz jackets. The visit started at the “smelly” end where all the waste food was received in a building prior to being shredded and blended. Any plastic wrappings and contamination was also removed at this stage. The food waste is mixed with sludge to form a “soup” which is pumped across to the two AD tanks. The AD tank contains no oxygen and the anaerobic bacteria get to work breaking down the food waste. In the process of doing this they produce methane gas, which is removed and used to generate electricity.
As the site is receiving “smelly” waste the air from all the buildings is removed and passed up through a bio filter. The bio filter comprises of a chamber which contains chipped wood, bacteria colonise the wood
and break down the odorous particles. Once the bacteria have done there work and used up all the organic material in the AD tank a digestate is removed from the tanks.
The digestate is currently being removed on a trial basis with mobile plant. Digestate is then mixed with compost and applied to land. By this stage a smell was starting to get a bit too much for some of the members. As we walked back to the office were shown the area where the compost is screened and sent off site for use.
The visit ended with a quick vote of thanks from Alex Thomson to Kristine Leitch for a very interesting and informative tour.
Next stop hotel for lunch and a well deserved lunch. This time there was no tour of the roadworks but for some reason some of the other members decided to do a tour of the M73, M8 and M80 prior to coming for lunch. We all got there in the end and had a very enjoyable lunch.
Our thanks to Lorna Donaldson for making all the arrangements and kindly providing maps and directions (who needs them!). The considering providing all members with a Sat Nav.