High Level Clean Down at a
Materials Recycling Facility

• Project Type: High Level Industrial Clean Down
• Location: Materials recycling facility, Lanarkshire
• Client: The facility operator
• Duration: November 2024 to January 2025, 8 site visits
• Team Deployment: IRATA qualified rope access crew of 4

Overview

Think Access’s Scotland team completed a high level clean down of the materials recycling process hall at a waste management facility in Lanarkshire, pressure washing wall panels, cladding and steelwork from roof level down across the hall, the sorting room and the separation areas.

Working on ropes above the process lines, our four person crew brought years of accumulated dust off the building fabric while the facility carried on working beneath them.

The Challenge

Materials recycling halls generate dust constantly, and it settles on every ledge, panel and beam above the process line. Left alone it becomes a housekeeping failure, a hygiene issue and, at worst, a fire loading risk sitting directly above plant and people.

The difficult part is reach. The contaminated surfaces sit high above conveyors and moving plant, where scaffolding would shut down production and towers cannot follow the walls around the equipment. The operator needed the fabric cleaned properly, not just where a platform happened to fit.

The Solution

Rope access put cleaning teams directly onto every surface that needed attention, with the plant sequenced around them rather than stopped.

Across the programme our team delivered:

• Systematic pressure washing of wall panels in the process hall, worked panel by panel from roof level down
• Cleaning above the main conveyor belts, coordinated with the operator so belts below active drops were protected or paused
• Clean down of the sorting room and separation areas, including awkward steelwork and ledges that trap the heaviest deposits
• Steady progress tracked against a hall plan, so the operator always knew which bays were complete
• All washing contained and managed to keep the process areas workable throughout

The crew worked around the facility’s operating pattern across eight visits, taking areas as they were released and handing them back clean the same day.

Results

The process hall, sorting room and separation areas were cleaned from high level down to floor level, sharply reducing the dust loading on the building fabric and giving the operator a demonstrably better housekeeping position for audits and insurers.

Alongside our maintenance and rescue work in the energy from waste sector, the project shows the breadth of what rope access teams deliver inside operational waste facilities without stopping production.

Industrial Cleaning at Height

Think Access delivers high level clean downs, pressure washing and industrial cleaning by rope access at recycling, energy and manufacturing facilities across Scotland and the UK. If dust and grime are building up where your access equipment cannot reach, contact Think Access to discuss a clean down programme.