County Council about to approve 26 year waste strategy (with more incineration)

Since the appointment of Veolia Environmental Services as the preferred bidder negotiations have continued to finalise the commercial, financial, technical and legal issues of the contract and these negotiations are now reaching a conclusion. A more detailed report will be presented to Cabinet at a later date.

The proposed contract includes recycling, composting and energy recovery by incineration which produces energy from waste. The contract, once agreed, will commit Veolia Environmental Services to delivering recycling and composting rates of 52 percent by 2020 through managing materials generated from kerbside collections of dry recyclables and garden waste and also from the Household Waste Recycling Centres located around the County. It will also ensure that the vast majority of the rubbish thrown away by people across Nottinghamshire is treated before remaining residual waste is disposed of via landfill.
Proposed facilities include:

* A material recycling facility in Mansfield to handle around 80,000 tonnes per year from 2008 of dry recyclable items such as paper, card, plastic bottles and cans

* A new composting facility near Bilsthorpe and the use of other existing composting sites to handle a total of 100,000 tonnes of green waste per year

* A new Household Waste and Recycling Centre to serve Worksop and the upgrade and ongoing operation of the Council’s network of sites
* Development of a network of new transfer stations, which receive and handle collections from waste collection authorities, to serve Newark, Worksop and South Nottinghamshire and the use of similar existing sites elsewhere in the county in the interim

* The construction of an 180,000 tonne per annum modern Energy Recovery Facility (to serve Mid and North Nottinghamshire) in the greater Mansfield/Ashfield area. This facility will be designed to convert the remaining waste that has not been recycled or composted into electricity from 2011, when direct delivery of waste to landfill will be dramatically reduced. The bottom ash from this process after being screened to recover metals will be reprocessed into aggregate, therefore further aiding resource recovery from the facility

* The use of a network of existing in-county and regional landfill sites to take the remaining waste that has not been pre treated, plus residues from the facilities once they are constructed.

Councillor David Kirkham, Leader of the County Council, said: “I’m pleased that this contract is moving forward. We are all throwing more rubbish away each year and we can’t just continue to dump most of it in landfill. It’s time to make a major change in how we deal with the rubbish we all create and this contract will allow us to do that. By working with Veolia Environmental Services we will be able to recycle or compost much more than we do now.
“I recognise that the most contentious issue with this proposal is where in the Mansfield and Ashfield area the Energy Recovery Facility is to be built. An announcement will be made on the preferred location in due course. We will make sure that once announced we will consult with local people and will take their views into account.”
The recent DEFRA consultation document on the future national waste strategy proposes recycling levels that are very similar to those set out in the PFI contract. It also recommends the use of energy recovery as an alternative to landfill, which is in line with the proposed contract with Veolia.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Sarah Deacon,
Environment Awareness Officer,
Nottinghamshire County Council.

tel: 0115 977 3729