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Calvert Landfill Site

This view is of the northern corner of the currently active part of the landfill site taken from a footpath that threads its way through the site to Edgcott in the south-west from a bridleway that comes from Calvert. Calvert is one of the largest landfill sites in the country (landfill permission is currently 106 hectares), and takes rubbish from London, and from Bath and Bristol. The waste is tipped from container trucks which are bought to the site by rail, see SP6924 : Waste transfer station, Calvert Landfill Site, Calvert, moved into place by bulldozers, and compressed by heavy compactors which have steel wheels with spikes to break up the waste and rip open plastic bags.

The landfill goes into old clay pits left over from when clay was extracted for the Calvert Brickworks which opened in 1900, see SP6923 : Clay Pits near Calvert. On the 1940s OS map this particular area was Charndon Wood, but as successive pits were opened up, so the woods were dug up for clay as well. When the brickworks ceased production in 1991, eight huge pits remained.

The use of the pits south of the Charndon-Calvert road for landfill was authorised in 1977, and about two-thirds of the pits in the north and west of the site are now full. These pits have been capped with clay, and wells drilled to extract gas with a high methane content, as well as contaminated water. Two power stations on the site generate electricity from the gas enough to power 17,000 homes. The site is currently operated by the Waste Recycling Group for the Department of the Environment.