Hi,
First time poster here and thought i would share my experiences of using waste transfer stations.
A lot of waste transfer stations are closed at weekends so this vehicle may have had to travel further than they normally would, to unload their vehicle.
All waste needs to be traceable within reason and large vehicles would need to weighed, waste carriers licence checked, a waste transfer note would need to be issued. Household recycling dumps do not do this sort of administration or have the facilities to do so. They are generally used by homeowners with the emphasis on a high volume turnover of recyclable waste. Commercial waste, which this would be, would not be accepted at all, at these type of sites.
Waste Transfer Stations in general are extremely difficult to find online. These are taboo places because of the landfill aspect. Even on occasions where i have had to call the Environment Agency for the location of a nearby landfill site, they are extremely reluctant to let you know where they are.
To narrow down the possible location of local landfill sites, it is better to search the main waste company websites such as Biffa, Sita, Veolia, etc.
As for the actual landfill sites, no two are the same. Some are vast sites that can take an hour to drive around with the speed restrictions. Others can be in little warehouses on industrial estates. When you tip your waste, employees will literally begin tearing apart what you have tipped before you have actually finished unloading. Some sites have a great big hole in the ground that you literally reverse up to under supervision and empty your waste into. Others as you tip, will have a large open topped vehicle being filled up by a crane that then moves the waste to another larger area on the site. The smaller sites will have regular collections (daily) of waste that gets transferred to larger sites. Within minutes of unloading your waste at most tips, it will be moved to another location on or off the premises. You could tip waste at a small transfer station in Suffolk and it could be counties away at a large site within hours.
There are very few 24 hour manned tips. I know the Biffa at Edmonton in North London is a 24 hour site but i cannot think of any others so i would guess that they did not tip that vehicle until at the very earliest on a Saturday between 6- 8am.
In my opinion, if the Police have ruled out searching the tip and the fact that this waste transfer station was open at the weekend, suggests the waste from this vehicle must be at a large site. They must feel the waste from the vehicle is untraceable without a titanic amount of unsustainable labour hours. Finding a mobile phone amongst the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of tonnes of waste at a large site would be impossible. You have more chance of winning the lottery.
