Thessaloniki Prefecture is home to two million people, one million of whom live in the city of Thessaloniki. The management of the waste is therefore high on the agenda to provide Thessaloniki’s citizens and summer tourists with a sustainable waste management system. Traditionally, waste has been transported from the western region of Thessaloniki directly to the municipality’s waste collection vehicles to the Mavrorahi sanitary landfill site. To help reduce vehicle movements and the carbon footprint, FODSA (The Regional Association of Solid Waste Management Agencies of Central Macedonia) decided to build a new 1,100 tons per day waste transfer station at Efkarpia, to serve the municipalities across western Thessaloniki.
We undertook the study, the design, and the construction of the waste transfer station, and of course the supply of all waste transport equipment necessary to carry out the station’s operation. A facility of 50 acres was built comprising distinct areas for the discharge of the RCVs, the compactors, the containers, the vehicles’ washing and service, the wastewater treatment, and the weighing of the RCVs.
The heart of the station are the four POWERPACK 820® stationary compactors, each fitted with a containers change-over wagon system. The discharge of the RCVs takes place within a closed facility fitted with automatic gates and a complete air-filtering/deodorization system to reduce odors escape and air pollution to minimum. The waste transport equipment consists of 21 hook-lift vehicles and 61 waste containers each capable of carrying the load of almost three typical RCVs. This is expected to reduce the served municipalities transport cost to at least 60%.
The station is expected to handle 1,100 tons per day, but its infrastructure can potentially reach 2,430 tons per day. Thessaloniki’s Waste Transfer Station is a state-of-the art facility compliant with all European and national standards for environmental protection and safety, therefore can be fairly characterized as a role model for any waste transfer station in Greece or abroad.
