Walshestown Restoration Ltd. is one of Ireland’s most progressive EPA-approved C&D waste license facilities. With both eyes fixed firmly on the future, co-owners Patrick Meade and Mervyn Ross have invested substantially in the business in recent times, including the development of a state-of-the-art new processing plant at their busy facility near Naas, County Kildare.
Fully licensed by the EPA, Walshestown Restoration is a market-leading waste processing and recovery facility, allowing all sectors of Irish industry to restore and reclaim non-hazardous excavated materials in support of Ireland’s Waste Action Plan for a circular economy. Providing full traceability and certification from its strategically-situated location at Walshestown, Naas, County Kildare, Walshestown Restoration was established in 2016 and is licensed to accept non-hazardous C&D waste, including soils from brownfield sites and other inert waste for recovery and landfilling.
Generating employment for a team of 20, the progressive construction and demolition waste recycling facility continues to move with the times. Directors Mervyn Ross and Patrick Meade have invested millions of euro in new plant and facility upgrades over the past couple of years, including the genesis of a new processing technology. This plant allows them to recover C&D waste into a secondary raw material or by-product, which they will be able to divert back into construction once they have secured their End of Waste authorisation from the Environmental Protection Agency.
According to Facility Manager Mervyn: “We’ve developed the plant for processing non-hazardous waste for recovery and have applied for our End of Waste status for diverting or recycling aggregates back into the construction industry for re-use. So, essentially, we are accepting in the waste and diverting it from landfill by screening, washing, processing and testing it and once approval is in place we will have the ability to sell that back to customers for re-use as an alternative to virgin aggregates.
“Once we have EPA approval for End of Waste criteria, we’ll transform waste back into industry as a product. The Circular Economy Bill is going through and there is a major emphasis being placed on hitting those targets in line with EU directives.”
One of the first facilities in Ireland to develop an EPA-approved soil-washing facility, Walshestown Restoration are currently accepting, washing, processing and testing waste for recycling purposes. At present, the sand and aggregate produced as by-products are being used in their own site but, once they have been issued with their End of Waste approvals, Walshestown will be in a position to divert these products back into the construction industry.
Punchestown Racecourse is located literally next door to Walshestown Restoration, on adjoining land, and the two businesses are collaborating on a major project to extend the iconic racecourse over the coming years. “Punchestown recently got permission to extend the racetrack,” Patrick notes. “Part of the new straight will actually go down the backend of our site and we are going to be helping build the new extension to the course in conjunction with Punchestown.”
Works here are due to commence after the 2022 Punchestown National Hunt Racing Festival in late April next year and will take three seasons to complete. Walshestown Restoration expect to extract and use up to one million tonnes of materials from site of the proposed new racecourse for refilling.
The well-appointed Walshestown Restoration site comprises approximately 170 acres and is licensed to accept up to 330,000 tonnes of waste per annum. The business is specialising more and more in C&D brownfield site waste (i.e. contaminated soil) and more difficult materials. “The core business now is contaminated soil,” Mervyn confirms. “We’re still doing the same volume as before but it’s more specialist now, with less greenfield site waste coming through our gates.”
Since Building Ireland last touched base with Mervyn and Patrick three years ago, staff numbers have increased by 33%, up from 15 to 20. “The crew on the ground is still pretty much the same but we’ve had to increase the numbers in the office due to extra demands on the compliance and paperwork side of things.”
An extensive fleet of plant and machinery keeps the wheels turning at Walshestown Restoration and ongoing investment is required to make sure that the best equipment is on hand to carry out all works as efficiently, professionally and environmental-consciously as possible. To this end, several million euro has been invested in new plant over the past 36 months.
“We purchased second-hand plant when we started out in 2016 but we have gradually replaced it with new plant,” Patrick continues. “Regular investment is needed to upgrade the plant and we’ve recently added a new Dressta dozer from FJS Plant, a Volvo 150 loading shovel off O’Donnells and two new Komatsu excavators from McHale Plant Sales.”
It was FJS who supplied all of Walshestown’s initial machinery and they also recently took possession of a new excavator from the local heavy machinery dealer. Other recent additions to the fleet include a specialist Johnston road sweeper from Westpark Motors – a rare machine as it sweeps both sides of the road in a single pass – and a new water tanker used for dust suppression during the summer months.
Walshestown Restoration has come a long way since its inception almost six years ago and – through strong investment in upgraded facilities, improved plant and experienced personnel – will continue providing industry-leading C&D waste recycling solutions for years, nay decades, to come.
Walshestown Restoration Ltd.,
Walshestown,
Naas,
County Kildare.
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, February 2022, Vol 8 No 2
