New commercial composting facility planned for Oswestry

Planning permission has been granted for a new in-vessel 14,000 tonne a year composting facility to be developed on land at Brookfield Farm near Oswestry. 

The site in question already composts green garden waste from households in the Oswestry area and has done so for a number of years under contract to the local council since 2003.  These new plans propose to enhance the existing facility so that In-Vessel composting can take place on the site. This is essentially industrial  composting which takes place within enclosed steel containers allowing for a much hotter composting process.  The reason for this is to allow food waste to be composted at high temperatures thus killing off any nasty bacteria like salmonella and e-coli which may be present on the food waste.

The waste would be tipped within an indoor large steel agricultural style building.  Stockpiling, shredding and blending and loading of wastes into large steel containers would take place out of site and under cover within this building.  The sealed vessels will then be wheeled to a designated area within the external rear yard where primary composting operations would be undertaken.  The composting wastes would be aerated by a forced-air system.  Exhaust air would be extracted from the vessel by a fan and passed through the biofiltration system.  Temperature would be monitored and controlled.  The system would enable the temperature to reach 65°c for a period of 2 days, as required by Animal Byproducts Regulations. Once the initial phase has been completed, the vessels would be wheeled into the maturation building and the material would be formed into piles to undergo stabilisation and maturation. The piles would be monitored and once temperatures have fallen to a relatively constant level, the material would be screened within the screening shed. 

It is intended that compost is produced to PAS100 standard, the nationally recognised quality standard for compost. This will ensure that compost produced is no longer classed as a waste, and will allow the resulting compost to be sold as a product to local horticultural and agricultural outlets.  The majority of the compost produced would continue to be used on site, to be spread on the farm land as a soil improver.