Yanley Landfill Restoration

Posted 20 Apr 2011

As part of the restoration of Yanley landfill near Bristol, Viridor asked children from Ashton Vale primary school to help it plant trees as part of a £100,000 project to transform the closed waste site.

The site has been used for waste disposal since the sixties, but was turned into a modern landfill in 1988 before Viridor took over operations in 1997.

Barbara Withers, a member of the Yanley Landfill Community Liaison Group, said: "All those years ago, when we first heard about the dump, we couldn't imagine getting to the day when it would be full and being transformed into a new woodland.

"We had grown used to living near a dump, and we knew the landfill site was going to be better environmentally managed than the 1960s dump.

"Apart from the whole thing being unsightly, there was the smell. But this company has always been very responsive. I'd just pick up the phone, and say 'your tip is whiffing a bit today', and they seemed to be able to do something about it within a few hours."

Sue Morgan, also a member of the liaison group, said: "Just before they started dumping here I took a series of photographs of the fields, and you wouldn't recognise the place at all now. There is now an enormous hill where once all the filds were flat, but now the place is being transformed."

The landfill is now closed and is being restored into a natural environment, including the project to plant 3,500 trees, turning part of the site into beautiful English woodland.

Mark Logan, Viridor's Project Engineer, has the job of overseeing the restoration. He said: "For the past couple of years, since the tipping ended, we have been bringing in tonnes and tonnes of soil to build up the hill.

"The entire chamber beneath the hill is sealed, and we pump the methane out directly into an electricity generator. The gas we capture drives an engine that allows us to sell electricity back to the grid.

"Hanging Hill Wood, an 50,000 square metre ancient woodland, adjoins Yanley. The woodland we're planting should eventually compliment it. We have already planted 56,000 square metres of new woodland, and we have 17,000 square metres still to plant as well as 600 metres of hedgerow and 130,000 square metres of grassland.

"It may not be my generation that sees it fully matured, but it's nice to know that future generations will be able to enjoy woodland walks here, where once we disposed of our rubbish."

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