Plans to reconstruct the fire-ravaged Altens recycling plant have been given the go-ahead.
The state-of-the-art Suez Recycling and Recovery UK facility on Hareness Road in Aberdeen was destroyed in a blaze on July 8 last year.
The fire lasted six days, destroying most of the building.
Since last year, it has had to be completely demolished right down to the ground.
One section of the facility and adjoining office block were badly damaged, but both buildings are “salvageable” and will be repaired.
Recycling from Aberdeen homes has since had to be taken elsewhere and some staff were made redundant from their positions due to the accident.
For the past year, around 80 trucks per month have taken up to 18 tonnes of mixed recycling 300 miles to Hartlepool – the nearest facility that could handle the mixture of waste.
Although bosses say they will never be able to pinpoint exactly what sparked the fire it is believed to have been caused by a lithium battery – possibly found in a discarded electric toothbrush or vape.
Millions of pounds worth of equipment and machinery were also destroyed in the blaze – meaning the recycling company will need to start fresh.
A year on, Suez, who runs the plant, has been given permission to reconstruct the building.
While the rebuild is identical to the original structure, Suez told the Press & Journal they plan to upgrade the plant to make it even better.
What was so special about Altens?
The £27 million facility at Altens was built using the latest technology at the time.
Aberdeen City Council residents have the ease of using a mixed recycling bin instead of needing several bins for recyclables at home.
Using 115 machines, different recyclables could be identified and separated by type and compacted into appropriate bales.
Bin lorries would take household recycling to the centre where it would then be loaded onto a conveyor belt. Staff would remove items that would damage the process by hand.
The load would then go through a separation, get packed into bales, and be sent to other sites around the UK to be recycled into new items.
What has been happening to your recycling since?
The facility was built to divert 71,000 tonnes of Aberdeen’s waste from landfill each year.
Only around 1% of the waste taken to the Altens ended up in a landfill.
After it burnt down, Aberdeen’s household recycling needed to be sorted almost 300 miles away in Hartlepool.
This meant for residents, other than initially some postponed bin collections, there has been no real disruption.
A spokeswoman for Suez stressed the same number of trucks with sorted recyclables would have been leaving the Altens facility prior to the fire.
She said: “Since the fire, we have basically the same number of trucks heading south but they are doing so via Hartlepool where the sorting takes place. It’s the same amount of material, it just gets sorted further south.
“The tonnage remains pretty consistent, it’s the fact that at the moment, the trucks leaving Aberdeen are full of mixed recyclables rather than sorted.”
Suez ‘working very hard’ to bring Altens recycling centre back
After the blaze, 56 roles were affected with some people being redeployed or retrained.
Bosses at Suez have kept in contact with most people and plan to take everyone back when the plant is up and running again.
The original cost of the building was £27 million, however, materials have gone up in price significantly. The spokeswoman for Suez explained that while they don’t have an exact figure at this stage, the company is expecting it to cost more this time.
Colin Forshaw, production operations manager at Suez, explained the company will install a similar automatic sprinkler system, it will just have any updates that have become available.
The original system used at the Aberdeen recycling plant performed correctly and gave staff enough time to evacuate the building while waiting for the fire service.
Mr Forshaw said: “The building itself will look almost exactly the same as pre-fire, same size, same cladding.
“But inside, we’ll be putting in brand new machinery. It’ll be doing the same job separating materials for recycling, but the machinery has advanced over the last five years, so it will be a bit more efficient, targeting different materials and processing materials to a higher quality as well.
“We’re working very hard to plan a new facility and we’re looking forward to getting it operational as soon as possible.”
The plans can be viewed here.
