The French-owned company is planning to hold five public events next month to allow local residents to comment on the proposals to build the energy recovery plant on a brownfield site at Severnside in South Gloucestershire.

The facility would be located midway between Avonmouth and Severn Beach, next to the existing gas-fired Seabank Power Station.

Commenting on the plans, SITA UK’s planning and property manager, Gareth Phillips, said: “With landfill tax set to rise to £72 per tonne by 2013, local businesses are faced with increasing pressure to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill: This development could significantly benefit businesses by providing an efficient alternative.

“The energy recovery centre could divert up to 400,000 tonnes of waste from landfill each year, which would save £19.2 million in landfill tax (based on the projected 2010 rate of £48 per tonne).

“It could also generate enough electricity for approximately 50,000 homes, which is equivalent to half the households in South Gloucestershire,” he added

The plans for the facility could prove controversial locally, with the Liberal Democrats in control of Bristol city council having already opposed plans to build an EfW facility to Avonmouth to treat the area’s residual household waste on both environmental and contractual grounds.

SITA UK has stressed that its Severnside proposals are at a “very early stage”, and that it expects to submit a planning application in autumn 2009 “at the earliest”.

If the plans do go ahead, they would involve the company redeveloping an eight hectare site, including making improvements to an existing railway line to reduce the number of lorries needed to bring waste to and from the site.

Despite the proposed plant’s C&I waste focus, SITA UK added that “there may be capacity in the future to help manage domestic waste, if there is a requirement from local authorities”.

See letsrecycle.com story.

Just when will our society realise that when everyone produces such large quantities of waste, the waste HAS to be processed and disposed of somehow, and somewhere, and that it is unreasonable to expect to send it out of the area in which the waste was created!

In our first case the Surrey County Council Energy from Waste (EfW) facility, which only received planning permission in October 2008, now looks set to face further delays after a successful challenge against its development by the local parish council. Surrey Waste Management’s proposal for the facility at the Clockhouse Brickworks site in Capel, Surrey, has suffered a myriad of set-backs and challenges since the original planning permission, granted as far back as 2002, was overturned.

An official judgment is expected to have been made by the end of February (after this issue has gone to press). The 100000 tonnes capacity facility was intended to be operational in 2012 as part of a PFI-funded deal between Sita subsidiary, Surrey Waste Management, and the county council.

Our second problem waste processing facility in Cornwall has been rejected and new plans must be drawn up, so the problem is really serious for the citizens of Cornwall. The following is an extract from the BBC News item highlighting the problem:

New county waste plans ‘needed’

An alternative strategy for dealing with Cornwall’s waste needs to be drawn up as soon as possible, a council scrutiny committee has ruled.

The call to Cornwall Council comes after plans by waste company Sita for an incinerator at St Dennis were refused two weeks ago.

Sita then withdrew proposals for a waste centre at Scorrier last week.

The council will decide whether to follow the recommendation for a waste plan after elections later in the year.

Cornwall Council’s Environment Policy and Development Scrutiny Committee recommended that a dedicated panel be set up to look at alternatives.

The committee’s chairman, independent councillor Mark Kaczmarek, said: “It is essential that Cornwall has a clear way forward to deal with its waste.

“Our remaining landfill is running out. Far too much time and money has been wasted over the last few years and no solution to Cornwall’s waste disposal has been created. Cornwall Council must make this issue a priority.”

The full council will decide whether to follow the recommendation for a waste plan after it holds its elections in June.

County councillors voted 20-to-one on 26 March against Sita’s bid to build a waste-to-energy incinerator in the county. Planning officials had advised the council to grant the application.

The £117m waste-to-energy plant would have handled all of Cornwall’s waste – an estimated 240,000 tonnes of waste a year which would, in turn, have generated power for thousands of homes across the county. More here.

Manchester waste PFI deal to be done by end of month

Europe’s largest waste management contract, the £3.3bn Greater Manchester waste PFI, will be finalised by the end of the month, an insider on the project has claimed.

The source said the banks involved in the 25 year contract were close to agreeing the struc­ture of the finance.

A joint venture between infrastructure investor John Laing and waste contractor Viridor was originally named as preferred bidder by client Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA) in January 2007.

But the complexity of the deal and increasingly difficult lending conditions caused by the credit crisis have meant that every deadline for the project has so far been issed. Last December GMWDA predicted that the deal would be wrapped up by Christmas 2008 (NCE 4 December 2008).

I think that many are waiting anxiously to see these signings go through. The industry needs this vital re-assurance that the banks are still able to put together a deal of this size, are lending, and that the credit crunch has done its worst… (The Waster)

WRAP launches new municipal MRF search tool to support closer communications across recycling supply chain

05 February 2009

Local authorities, reprocessors and other stakeholders in the recycling and waste management industry can now quickly and easily find municipal MRFs across the UK, following today’s launch by WRAP of a new online database.

Based on WRAP’s popular ORIS (Online Recycling Information System), the new tool is designed as a series of interactive maps with a search function which enables users to quickly identify and locate MRFs. The entries include information relating to the material streams the MRFs accept, their throughput capacities and the output materials they produce.

Promoting clearer, more open communications throughout the recycling supply chain is a key area of focus for WRAP. Not only does it help the different stages of the recycling and recovery process to better coordinate their activities – but it is also understood to have a direct influence on the quality of materials being submitted for processing by MRFs and, consequently, the quality of recyclate that can be produced.

Mike Falconer Hall, Materials Recycling Programme Manager at WRAP, said: “Encouraging better communication across the supply chain is an essential part of WRAP’s drive to support the industry as it works to improve the quality of recovered materials.”

He added: “We’re making this information freely available to all those involved with the collection, recovery and recycling of dry waste recyclables in response to a high level of demand by this industry for a comprehensive, easily accessible database. By increasing transparency and opening up new communication lines between MRF operators and their supply chain, we’re providing a boost to the sector which will translate into real business opportunities for all involved.”

The new tool sits alongside the current range of interactive ORIS maps that allow users to search for household and school recycling services in their local areas and has been compiled by WRAP in close conjunction with operators of all the MRFs that are listed. More…

Tyre bales at Pevensey

It will be obvious to our Wastersblog readers that the disposal of vehicle tyres is a real headache, for the waste management industry, and as motorists we are all feeling the pinch from rapidly rising tyre disposal costs.

Certainly, the last time I bought a new tyre, the garage added several pounds to my bill for disposing of the old one.

However, a number of landfill operators have been using tyres for leachate drainage within landfills for some years as an engineering material, and they have found that using tyres as drainage layers in landfills provides adequate flow capabilities, at close to zero cost for their leachate drainage. However, manhandling individual tyres to stack them efficiently on site is a tedious, dirty, and time consuming task, and this fact alone has probably done a great deal to limit tyre use uptake. Whole and granulated tyres have been used for this purpose.

That was for whole tyres, as far as we are aware, just about the only use available in landfills.

Since WRAP published a British Standards Institution (BSI) and has produced a Publicly Available Specification, PAS 108, in collaboration with the tyres reprocessing industry, a whole new range of uses has opened up, from baled tyres.

Almost overnight, baled tyres have become an engineering product with standard bale sizes and shapes, and most important of all, clear design strength data.

Designers and purchasers can now use the structural and drainage characteristics provided from the research done for the PAS, and incorporate tyre bales into designs, just like any other proprietary geo-synthetic material.

In short, providing a specification for producing compact tyre bales of a consistent and verifiable quality and dimension, opens up a new and potentially huge market for waste tyres.

The method re-uses tyres, reducing the demand for the primary aggregate materials used in the past.

The PAS 108 specification can be adopted by suppliers for producing tyre bales such that potential customers will be assured that they are procuring a construction material of consistent and verifiable quality.

Furthermore, the core of this document addresses the production, handling, storage, transport and placement of standardized tyre bales, the dimensions and properties of which are standardised and described in this PAS. So go find out more at the Landfill Site Tyre Bales page here, and you will also find the contact details for one of the first suppliers.

* Mark Milner, industrial editor
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 11 2008 00.01 GMT
* The Guardian, Tuesday November 11 2008

Paper being recycled

Britain’s paper recycling strategy is under increasing strain after a collapse in waste prices in recent weeks, according to a leading industry organisation.

Britain lacks the capacity to handle the rising amount of paper being recovered for recycling, and its dependence on exports has left it vulnerable to a rapid price collapse, the Confederation of Paper Industries said yesterday.

Far Eastern buyers had been snapping up about three-quarters of Britain’s exports of paper for recycling, but demand from the region has almost disappeared recently, the CPI said.

“With no obvious signs of Far East buyers returning to the market soon there is a serious possibility that storage of recyclables may end up being a high-risk strategy with huge costs to those requiring storage, including the taxpayers through local authorities,” the CPI said in a statement.

“The worst-case scenario is that some material collected for recycling could go to incineration or landfill,” CPI recovered paper sector manager, Peter Seggie, said.

The UK collects about 8.6m tonnes of paper and board for recycling every year but UK paper makers can only handle 4m tonnes, resulting in dependence on export markets, primarily the Far East and Europe, to take the remainder. More …

This years edition provides the following list of the top twenty waste contractors, which in this context means a ranking of the top construction contractors in the landfill development field. These companies normally also carry out landfill capping/restoration projects and many also work in building recycling facilities and composting plants.

1. Ascot Environmental
2. J N Bentley
3. Edmund Nuttall
4. Fitzpatrick Contractors
5. Balfour Beatty
6. Norwest Hoist Civil Engineering Division
7. North Midland Construction
8. J Breheny Contractors
9. Fox Owmby
10. Amalgamated Construction Company
11. Dean and Dyball
12. Raymond Brown Construction
13. Alun Griffiths Contractors
14. Forkers
15 UCS Civils
16 Wrenco Contractors
17. Highland Quality Construction
18. Interserve Project Services
19. Barhale Construction
20. Buckingham Croup Contracting

Although the top listed players are well known and respected within the waste industry they are not household names outside the waste industry, and the really large national contractors are under-represented with only Balfour Beatty present.

This is a very specialist area of work and has the large value contracts have the past been dominated by landfill development and restoration works, with some work also in waste facility construction.

The split of the value of the work will soon reverse with increasing demand for waste treatment and processing facilities rising fast to eventually exceed landfill type projects. This will happen as the largest of the UK’s planned PFI integrated waste management contracts to move into the construction cycle and the start of their operational contract periods. The UK government has plans to pump a lot of money into this sector, to have the necessary effect on the redirection of waste away from landfills in a big way, over the next few years.

Archive information etc on the top contractors of past years is available at the Landfill Site Top Twenty Contractors.

By Angela Gregory, New Zealand Herald

New Zealand could learn lessons from Denmark, a country with a similar-sized population that has cut its landfills by more than 1000 in the past 30 years, says a visiting waste management expert.

Peter Heydorn, a Danish environmental engineer, said 70 per cent of Denmark’s waste was recycled.

Only 6 per cent of the country’s waste went to landfill and a quarter of all waste was incinerated to create energy, which was less polluting than the burning of oil or coal.

Mr Heydorn told the Herald there were lessons in the Danish Waste Model for New Zealand which had the right mindset but could, for instance, do with more recycling facilities.

In Denmark, a country of 5.4 million, there were 340 recycling sites where the public could take all kinds of waste, including hazardous, and be assisted with how to divide it up among the appropriate bins.

“It has been a huge success.”

Only non-recyclable waste was allowed to be sent to landfill and there were a range of fines where breaches of policy were discovered.

The Danish model had 21 landfills now compared to 1140 in 1970.

Mr Heydorn said Denmark was way ahead of other European countries in keeping waste sent to landfills to a minimum. Taxes from landfills went towards inventing new models and technologies for recycling.

Denmark had also achieved 99 per cent recycling of green waste from parks and gardens and all households were offered a free compostor.

Mr Heydorn said it was critical to uncouple waste growth from economic growth.

There needed to be goal setting and planning at the national level and waste management and implementation at the local levels.

In Denmark there was often collective treatment of waste between municipalities, he said.

The Ministry for the Environment in New Zealand reports there are 62 identified landfills in the country.

Original page New Zealan Herald.

Transfer Stations are in reality just conveniently situated depots where refuse collection vehicles (RCVs)discharge their loads to avoid collection vehicles travelling uneconomic and unnecessary distances to distant landfills.

The waste is picked up again and compacted into larger vehicles which may carry up to double the tonnage carried in each street collection truck.

This reduces vehicle mileage and traffic congestion, as well as avoiding collection operatives riding unproductively in the cab while their vehicle travels long distances to landfill. The transfer station gets them back on to the collection round faster.

When Transfer Stations incorporate sophisticated methods of treatment or handling such as sorting for recycling, pulverisation, resource  recovery, incineration, composting etc, and are built to high standards of construction, the transfer function is less important.

So, they are now called MRFs (Materials Recovery Facilities), or in a slightly different form where the co-mingled and sometimes residual waste is also pre-treated before it leaves for the landfill, they are called MBT (Mechanical Biological Treatment) Plants. These new names much more readily describe the primary function of these facilities to re-use and recycle waste, and pre-treat those waste streams that cannot be re-used or recycled so that their impact in a landfill is reduced.

Refuse Transfer Stations, as they were originally called, are so simple that the name is not an adequate term for what takes place at the modern facilities of today.

So, it would seem that in the UK and many other developed nations, few if any will be built in the future.

The name is dying, but the transfer station function will be present, and will be accomplished as a small part of the function of MRFs, MBT Plants and other waste technology plants.

The Waster says: Is the Waster alone in pining for those much simpler long gone days? Those halcyon days before it ceased to be politically correct to call them dust carts, and rubbish trucks? Now we call them RCVs and have to think twice to remember what we are talking about.

Wastequip operates 35 manufacturing facilities nationwide. The company has not announced how many plants might shut down as part of the restructuring. However, company spokesman Jerry Samson said fewer than 10 facilities will close.

“At this time, we´re still evaluating that,” Samson said. “All we really know is we´re going to have it complete by the end of the year. Right now, we don´t know the exact number of facilities because we´re still in that process, but we´ll probably have a pretty good idea of that in the next 45 to 60 days.”

Wastequip said it would offer the workers affected by the closings relocation opportunities or assistance in finding employment in their local communities.

The plants Wastequip closes will be among its older and least efficient facilities, according to the company. Efficiency improvements at newer plants have resulted in production capacity gains that eliminate the need for the less efficient plants, according to the company.

Wastequip also plans to benefit from green initiatives at its remaining plants that will include increased use of energy efficient lighting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning [HVAC] controls. The company´s Winamac, Ind., plant already has put those measures in place and received an environmental stewardship award from the Indiana governor´s office. More…