How we did it ... Wembley sets waste on cleaner vacuum course

Huw Morris, Planning, 9 January 2009

BACKGROUND: The Wembley City development is one of the largest urban regeneration projects in Europe, aiming to transform the area into a world-class destination.

WHO IS BEHIND IT? Quintain Estates & Development and Envac.

PROJECT AIMS: A quick, clean and efficient waste management system that is environmentally friendly, reduces emissions and improves the public realm.

SKILLS INVOLVED: Sustainable waste collection, public realm management.

Wembley in north London is embedded in the nation's sporting and musical consciousness. Its stadium and arena are a byword for international football, the FA Cup, Live Aid and world-class performers. Although less glamorous, a waste collection system means that Wembley is offering another national first.

Quintain Estates & Development's Wembley City scheme is a colossus. As the third largest planning consent in UK history, the 34ha development around the National Stadium will provide 4,200 homes, 929,000m2 of commercial, leisure, residential and retail and extensive public open space. But it will generate an equally colossal amount of rubbish. This left Quintain with a problem - how could it be disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way?

The answer was to join forces with Envac, an international company that specialises in underground waste transport systems for residential areas and hospitals. Envac's principle works along similar lines to installing underground systems for electricity, sewage, telecommunications and water. Put simply, a system of underground vacuum pipes under Wembley City's streets uses air to transport waste.

Residents separate their waste into colour-coded containers for organic, dry recyclable and non-recyclable material before dropping it into corresponding chutes in the courtyard of their block.

Valves in the chutes are opened automatically twice a day and the rubbish is transported at 50mph through a fully enclosed vacuum system driven by fans to a single reception centre on the outskirts of the development. It is then directed to a container capable of holding 20 tonnes - the amount generated by 700 properties.

A hoist lifts full containers onto trucks for disposal. Crucially, the centre's location means that lorries will not have to drive into courtyards or premises. With fewer stops for loading and unloading, this means less noise disruption to residents and reduced carbon emissions.

"A residential area should be a dynamic, clean and attractive environment where people enjoy living," says Envac corporate marketing director Jonas Tornblom. "It should be a safe place to meet people and a space for recreation that is untainted by rubbish awaiting collection," he adds. "With the inconvenience and environmental burden associated with waste collection lorries, the importance of the public realm as the living room of our communities is very apparent."

Ultimately, the system will reduce refuse lorry kilometres on the site by up to 90 per cent. As a result, rubbish collection from Wembley City will generate 400 fewer tonnes of carbon a year than a conventional refuse collection system.

While Wembley City marks the technology's debut in the UK, the system has successfully operated at around 600 sites around the world, most notably Barcelona's Olympic Village, the medieval centre of Basque regional capital Vitoria in Spain and the Stockholm suburb of Hammarby Sjostad, a Swedish model for sustainable city development.

"Our aim is to make Wembley City a highly advanced district for London by embedding technologies that will not be found on other schemes for five years," says Quintain deputy chief executive Nick Shattock. "The Envac system helps make waste management clean, quick and efficient and significantly reduces its impact on the environment."