Residents furious at rubbish recycling shambles

Waste diverted from Yorkshire’s rubbish tips to make a compost substitute for growing crops has caused a stink after it was revealed the substance has actually been dumped in landfill.

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the substance called Sterefibre has been produced over three years but the company behind it still does not have permission to use it in agriculture.

Instead it has been sent to landfill sites where it has been used to “cap off” tips and more recently has been “stockpiled” at another landfill, where residents claim the stench is now “intolerable”.

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Sterefibre is made by Rotherham-based Sterecycle, which said it treats so-called “residual” waste which cannot be recycled from Doncaster, Rotherham, Barnsley, Leeds and Bradford.

The company has repeatedly claimed the Sterefibre substance is revolutionary and represents a way of cutting the huge amounts of Yorkshire’s rubbish which is currently buried in the ground.

But opponents say it has simply taken waste destined for rubbish tips, charged local authorities to treat it, and dumped the fibre, which it could not use or sell, in landfill sites anyway.

Controversy surrounding the stockpile at Hazel Lane landfill, in Hampole, Doncaster, recently intensified after it emerged planning permission had not been granted to store the fibre on the site.

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A retrospective application was refused and Doncaster’s planning committee called a halt to operations earlier this month and insisted the stockpile should be removed and tipping stop.

But that decision was overturned after Sterecycle mounted a legal challenge. Now the company and its contractor Cat Plant, which owns the site, have been allowed six months to remove the substance or make a new application for planning consent.

Members of the local parish council said they had “implored” the authorities to take action over the long-running tipping operation but until now had struggled to make their voices heard.

Nick Balliger, chairman of Hampole and Skelbrooke Parish Council said the number of complaints about smell and nuisance had increased as the tipping of Sterefibre grew on the Hazel Lane site.

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He added: “We have asked the health authorities, the council and the Environment Agency to investigate what was happening at the site on several occasions, but until now nothing has been done.

“This is waste that was never supposed to go to landfill, but has ended up in a landfill site anyway and has essentially been concentrated. We have been told that because it is a new, untested substance, there is no data on whether it is harmful – which is not of great comfort to people living on top of it.”

The firm said it had been stockpiling Sterefibre at the Hazel Lane site since 2008 while it “developed a market” and obtained permits for distribution.

Sterecycle chief executive Tom Shields admitted at least 50 per cent of the company’s total production was at the site, but said the situation was about to change.

• More details and background story in Saturday’s Yorkshire Post

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