Environmental odour news

One Bin to Rule Them All: The London Waste Plant Serving 4 Boroughs at Once London • Waste & Climate One Bin to Rule Them All: The London Waste Plant Serving 4 Boroughs at Once You put your black bag out on a Tuesday. By Wednesday you’ve forgotten about it. But if you live in South London, it’s just started a second life. By Editorial Team • 5 min read • Updated September 2026 You put your black bag out on a Tuesday. By Wednesday, you’ve forgotten about it. But your rubbish has just started a second life — and if you live in Croydon , Kingston , Merton or Sutton , it’s all going to the same place. Welcome to Beddington. The facility no one wants to talk about, but everyone uses Tucked off Beddington Lane in Sutton, the Beddington Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) is not pretty. It’s big, loud, and industrial. It’s also kind of a miracle. This one state-of-the-art plant treats most of the residual waste — your non-recyc...

On late-summer evenings in 2025, parts of Hexham didn't smell like the Hunter River or nearby industry. They smelled like raw sewage. The source wasn't a broken sewer main. It was the wastewater treatment plant at Hexham Manufacturing Pty Ltd , a dairy processor on the edge of Newcastle. In May 2026 the NSW Environment Protection Authority confirmed what locals had been reporting for months and fined the company $30,000 for breaching its Environment Protection Licence. What actually happened The EPA received several complaints between August and October 2025. Officers traced offensive odours back to the facility's wastewater treatment plant, detecting the same smell offsite at multiple locations.  The regulator's finding was blunt: the plant had not been properly maintained, and that failure caused the odours.  In September 2025 the EPA issued a Prevention Notice . Only then did Hexham Manufacturing undertake an extensive desludging operation .  Director of Operations ...