Mucking Marshes Landfill

Mucking Marshes Landfill is a major landfill site servicing London, close to the hamlet of Mucking. Covering hundreds of acres of former gravel quarry, it is one of the largest landfills in Western Europe and has been filled for decades with municipal and commercial waste floated thirty miles down the River Thames in barges to Mucking Wharf. The barges, each carrying dozens of distinctive yellow containers, are a familiar, though rarely commented-upon, sight along the Thames through Central London. Once the barges have travelled 30 miles (48 km) downstream from Tower Bridge, mechanical cranes at Mucking Wharf unload the containers onto trucks. The trucks make their way up the artificial mound created by decades of garbage compaction that towers over the surrounding flat landscape. Flocks of seagulls and other scavenging estuarine birds are a familiar sight as the trucks disgorge their contents.

The landfill site itself, although it dominates the village of Mucking, is strictly guarded and is surrounded by a perimeter fence more than four miles (6 km) long. Cory Environmental, the operators of the site, have gated off Mucking Wharf Road, meaning that spectacular views of the Thames meeting the North Sea can now be accessed from Mucking only via a circuitous footpath through the neighbouring village of East Tilbury.

In recent years, changes in London governance, including the creation of the Greater London Authority under Ken Livingstone have led to indications of a future reassessment of London's waste strategy based more on recycling and less on landfill sites like Mucking Marshes. However, as of November 2007, Mucking continues to be the destination for a large proportion of London's waste, although the effect of tough new European Union directives may change this in the future.

In 2007, Mucking Marshes Landfill was granted an extension to receive London's waste until 2010.^[1]

References

1. ^ Essex landfill to take London waste for three more years, www.letsrecycle.com, Retrieved 16 February 2007

Coordinates: 51°29′N 0°26′E / 51.49°N 0.43°E / 51.49; 0.43

This waste-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Landfills in the United Kingdom Thurrock Waste stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР Tampa Rockets Real Nigga Roll Call Look at other dictionaries: Mucking — Former church of St John the Baptist, Mucking, Essex Mucking is a hamlet and former Church of England parish adjoining the Thames estuary in southern Essex, England. It is located approximately 2 miles south of the town of Stanford le Hope in… …   Wikipedia Waste disposal authorities in Greater London — Greater London has a number of waste disposal authorities, responsible for waste collection and disposal. Prior to the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986, it was the waste authority for Greater London. Joint authoritiesThere are four …   Wikipedia Cory Environmental — Type Private Industry Waste management Founded 1896 Headquarters London, UK …   Wikipedia tunnels and underground excavations — ▪ engineering Introduction        Great tunnels of the world Great tunnels of the worldhorizontal underground passageway produced by excavation or occasionally by nature s action in dissolving a soluble rock, such as limestone. A vertical opening …   Universalium 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”