Hinkley Point C, the UK's first new nuclear power station in over 20 years, will provide low-carbon electricity to 6 million homes for years to come. The project is creating thousands of jobs, contributing to the local economy, and playing a crucial role in Britain’s energy security and transition to a net-zero carbon future.
Construction on the 400-acre site creates a unique waste challenge, with hundreds of operational areas generating waste, ranging from conventional mixed construction & demolition waste and packaging to highly hazardous materials. Requiring a waste segregation strategy to ensure efficient and compliant recycling practices.
Given the nature of the site it was also critical to prioritise worker health and safety, ensuring all waste solutions were compliant, safe as well as sustainable.
The Solution
Biffa provides an embedded on-site team, operating specialised vehicles which gather waste across all Hinkley C sites. Biffa also oversee an on-site Waste Consolidation Centre, where the team deal with the diverse range of challenging hazardous and non-hazardous waste streams.
The on-site team compliantly and efficiently segregate and route materials to Biffa’s upstream supply chain partners to enhance reuse & recycling rates.
KPIs such as waste volumes, recycling rates, waste segregation quality, and efficiency of outbound load consolidation are measured to monitor and provide recommendations to individual construction areas to drive sustainability improvements.
Biffa's Environmental Advisor also conducts regular platform inspections to ensure compliance across the waste hierarchy, delivering educational sessions for construction contractors and service providers to foster a culture of continuous improvement on the site.
As well as this Biffa consistently identifies areas of potential risk and provides detailed recommendations for the safe storage and containment of hazardous wastes, and the identification of new waste streams to improve performance across the waste hierarchy.
Value & Results
- Our collaborative partnership and data-driven approach has resulted in:
- A remarkable 94% diversion from landfill: Handling, segregating, and recycling over 15,000 tonnes of materials and around 100 different hazardous materials annually from Hinkley Point C.
- 99 tonnes in carbon emission savings: By consolidating waste into fewer containers, reducing the number of waste transfers, Hinkley Point C has substantially decreased its transportation footprint. Reducing the vehicle movements offsite by 80%, eliminating around 6,000 annual loads from the roads, thereby reducing local traffic congestion and the environmental impact.
- A successful metal and cable recycling programme: Achieved by implementing efficient practices which identifies valuable resources to be recovered and repurposed.
