October 25 2022

Barton Willmore, now known as Stantec, has prepared plans to expand the only landfill facility within the City of Glasgow to permit its continued operation for up to a decade.

Greenoakhill Landfill off Hamilton Road has been in operation for over 25 years but is approaching the end of its life with the remaining capacity expected to be filled within five years.

A 6-hectare area of active landfill containment constructed over the past 10 decades forms the focus of the application, with permission sought to dispose of an additional 600,000 tonnes of non-hazardous waste. This would increase the final infill height from 48m above sea level to 64m.

In a statement site operator, Patersons wrote: "The proposal will simply increase the height and volume of waste that can be deposited within the landfill cells that have already been constructed and which are located at the centre of the overall Greenoakhill facility.

"The proposed development will allow for the continued operation of the landfill facility beyond its current potential capacity, allowing for it to be used for an additional number of years. The rate of infilling a landfill is variable, based on the varying amounts of waste to be managed at any time. However, if the current annual infill rate is maintained then the additional capacity would see the landfill full and ready for complete restoration around the period 2030-32, a further 3 – 5 years than at present."

A Zero Waste policy by the Scottish Government seeks to bound the totality of all waste sent to landfill at 5% by 2025, including a stop to the landfilling of all biodegradable waste.

The broader Greenoackhill site spans 93 hectares of land off the M74 some 8km east of the city centre, of which 48 hectares have been reclaimed as a community woodland. On-site gas recovery generates 4MW of renewable energy for the grid and 250,000 tonnes of waste soils are recycled annually to provide aggregates for the construction industry.

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