Grundon opens Beenham waste facility to the public for the first time

Grundon Waste Management is throwing open the gates of its waste facility at Beenham to the public for the first time this Bank Holiday weekend.

The move is designed to help families who have been unable to dispose of household, recycling and garden waste due to the closure of local authority recycling centres and changes to waste collections during the Covid-19 lockdown period.

Neil Grundon, Grundon’s deputy chairman, says: “We know householders have been getting very frustrated by cutbacks in collections and the fact they haven’t been able to visit their local tip.

“Even though some recycling facilities are now beginning to open up again, people will undoubtedly face long queues. We hope that by opening our own facility we can take away some of that strain and help both individuals and councils get back on top of their waste as well as raising money for our amazing NHS.”

The facility will be open from 8.30am to 4pm on Friday, May 8 and Saturday May 9, and from 8.30am to 3pm on Sunday, May 10. Drivers will be charged £30 per car (no trailers or vans allowed) – £5 of which will be donated to NHS Charities Together.  All payments must be contactless – no cash or cheques will be accepted.

Grundon teams will be on hand to direct the tipping process, with waste dropped in two specific areas and moved by staff to the relevant section, ready for recycling and reprocessing at Grundon’s own facilities. Social distancing procedures will be maintained at all times.

Across some parts of the UK, the closure of recycling centres has led to a major increase in fly-tipping of waste.  In April, The Countryside Alliance reported that it had seen a 300% rise in fly-tipping in some areas, saying that a “large number of households had been using their spare time indoors to carry out DIY jobs both inside the home and in the garden”.

The Beenham facility will accept:

• Household general waste
• Mixed recycling
• Garden waste
• Wood
• Metals
• Cardboard

Mattresses can be disposed of for an additional fee of £15.

It will not take:

• Liquids
• Solvents
• Batteries
• Plasterboard
• Oil
• Electrical appliances