Buying new home close to Household Waste Recycling Centre

mi-key

If its anything like the household recycling centre near me, they are very strict about what they will take. I have never noticed any smells there as they don't take anything like food waste, it is all metal, wood, cardboard, glass, building waste etc.. 

400m is quite a long distance anyway, so I dont think you would notice any noise ( and it would only be during working hours anyway ) 

mi-key

It probably is worth asking the council what route any lorries take to get there, but I doubt you would hear them much from 400m away anyway

born_again

Council run or private?

Maybe try visiting the site @ various times & see what it's like. 

Postik

People are saying it probably doesn't smell because it's all recyclable stuff but they can be filthy places that often attract rats and vermin. Not everyone rinses their baked bean tins and yogurt pots out. The stuff can be piled high outside with diggers shifting it around - the scale can be enormous so it's niave to think it's all as clean as a whistle.

But it could be worse. It's not like it's a landfill or sewerage treatment plant. 400m is also a fair distance away.

pinkteapot

I work in landfill.  

Firstly, yes, fire risk at HWRCs and the onward processing sites and landfills is high, but there'll be systems in place and serious fire is very rare. We have many break out each year but we're watching everything closely, catch them quickly, and almost all are put out by trained staff - the Fire Brigade aren't even called. They're not breaking out because we're doing anything wrong - it's a combination of the heat produced by rotting waste and, in most cases these days, people throwing devices containing batteries in the bin rather than putting them in the battery bin at their HWRC. The risk of a big fire that would affect you with smoke/fumes is low. 

Secondly, rats, vermin etc. Yes, we have them. Of course we do. But we also have a full-time pest controller whose job is to keep them down. That's part of the environmental permitting of our sites - we're monitored by the Environment Agency. And the rats are very happy stuffing their faces at the tip so you're unlikely to see anything of them 400m away - it's a fair distance.

Thirdly... Is it just an HWRC, where stuff is collected then transported away, or does it also have large buildings where recyclables are processed, and/or an active landfill? Post a Google Maps link to the HWRC and we can have a look at the satellite photo and see. 

If it's just an HWRC, the main thing would be traffic - both people taking rubbish there and lorries going in and out removing the full skips (several per day in all likelihood). Check out which roads the lorries come in/out on and whether they pass near the house. 

HWRC's really aren't that smelly - at 400m I strongly doubt you'd notice it. 

If it's a bigger site with landfill and/or processing, they'll work longer hours than an HWRC so you may have more large vehicle/heavy plant noise early morning. Landfill is the bit of the site that smells - check prevailing wind directions. However, I do once-a-month odour monitoring where I drive in a loop around 500m from our site boundaries and keep stopping to have a sniff! It's very rare I pick up any smell from our sites. 

I'd buy a house next to a landfill or former landfill because you can pretty much guarantee that land will never be built on (at least not in your lifetime).  And when finished and capped a landfill becomes a big vegetated mound that gets a lot of wildlife.

KxMx

Re the fire risk, a similar centre (metal and waste recycling) in my town has had two bad fires in a month, both bad enough to have had multiple fire engines in attendance to put them out. 

The centre is now under investigation from various agencies including the Police. 

Niv

I also work in the waste industry and echo what @pinkteapot has said. 

If you are sure its just a HWRC (Household waste recycling centre) then the likely biggest issue will be traffic on the weekend with people wanting to use it. 

Assuming just a HWRC

Noise - well yes, some, cars driving to the site, people putting stuff in skips, skips being tapped down, and skips being removed from site. Site will close at dusk and may not be seven days a week.

Vermin - Yea, they probably do have some, but they are attracted to the site so not to the houses & there will be vermin control on site (permit requirement). FYI - if you live by a lovely woodland or a field you will have vermin nearby ..or if you have a garden frankly.

Odour - Possibly but not significant / regularly. The waste that is likely to cause odour is not on site for very long as the skips are moved offsite regularly and tbh, there isn't that much smelly stuff brought in to cause an actual odour issue offsite. And this is the recycling centre, black bin waste isnt what people are bringing in (although it does happen if people are having a clear out but tis not a large proportion).

Fires - possible (if you naughty members of the public insist on throwing batteries in the skips and hot bbqs), but at a HWRC the waste isn't particularly handled much so the main sorting / potential is when it goes to the MRF for processing & the staff are keeping an eye on what the MOPs are throwing into the skips.

The best advice on this is to go to the site on a weekend (busiest day most likely) and sit and watch and sniff for half an hour to get a feel for what goes on.

Niv

KxMx said:

Re the fire risk, a similar centre (metal and waste recycling) in my town has had two bad fires in a month, both bad enough to have had multiple fire engines in attendance to put them out. 

The centre is now under investigation from various agencies including the Police. 

That doesn't sound like a HWRC though.

Not all waste processing sites are equal.

GDB2222

As we have decluttered our house I have spent quite a bit of time at the local HWRC. There is plenty of noise, as people throw stuff into the big skips from above, but no appreciable smells.

I have been to a different site, where waste is placed on a conveyor and then goes through a compactor, and that’s much quieter.

So, I suggest that you visit the site and see  how it works.

mark_cycling00

Is it Wandsworth?

It's going to noisy and smelly. There will be processing and loading onto barges at all hours 

The prevailing SW wind used to move the smell away from the area but new apartment buildings have blocked this wind.

Western riverside are a good waste processing organisation and give millions each year in local grants (as required by their license) it's not their fault that people keep building apartment buildings next to them!