The Farington facility has been built on the former test track of the old Leyland Motors site. The development required land remediation to bring what was a derelict site into long term positive use.

The facility incorporates an advanced Mechanical Biological Treatment plant (MBT) that recovers materials from general rubbish such as paper, plastics and metals. The technology uses both anaerobic digestion and composting to produce both biogas and a compost-like soil improver.

The facility at Farington is one of two waste processing facilities built in Lancashire in partnership with Blackpool Council to recover and process municipal waste over 25 years. The Farington facility has state of the art technology for the treatment of general rubbish, recovery of recyclables and composting of green garden waste.

Key features of the facility include:

• Treatment of up to 170 ktpa of general rubbish, using mechanical and biological means, which removes as many recyclables as possible from the rubbish and then compost the remaining organic fraction;
• Composting of up to 55 ktpa of green garden waste;
• Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) where dry recycling will be sorted into waste streams;
• Digestion of organic liquor to produce gas to generate electricity required to power the treatment process;
• Harvesting of rainwater to provide all of the water needed for the treatment and composting processes in the most natural way possible;
• A negative pressure air management system which ensures that clean air is drawn into buildings and that dust or odours cannot escape;
• A giant 'biofilter' air treatment system which thoroughly cleans all of the air from the waste process buildings; and
• Purpose built Environmental Education Centre with an enclosed walkway through the facility for children to see the environmentally friendly waste treatment processes in action.

From the moment of delivery, every aspect of the Farington facility takes place indoors, making it the UK’s first fully enclosed waste treatment facility.

There are three different receival halls, depending on what type of waste is being delivered (garden & kitchen waste, kerbside-sorted recyclables or residual waste).

Garden and kitchen waste is delivered directly into a dedicated composting facility and the pre-sorted recyclables to the Materials Recovery Facility. Residual waste is delivered to the Residual Waste Reception Hall where it is loaded onto conveyor belts for sorting. This is where the UR-3R Process® begins with ResourceSort™ technology – a system which recovers the inorganic recyclable materials from the residual waste before the remains, which are mainly organic, are sent to the percolators.

The percolators wash the organic part of the household waste which is then sent to the composting hall to make OGM. The leftover water, which is rich in organic materials, is then drained off and sent to digesters where it breaks down to create methane, which is then used to generate green/renewable electricity to run the plant.

Every part of the process is connected to the air management system, which has been designed so that fresh air is constantly being sucked into the building. Therefore, when the doors are opened briefly to allow trucks access, air flows in, not out, owing to the fact that there is a slightly lower air pressure inside the building.