Grundon wins PPC approval for large EfW plant near Heathrow

Grundon Waste Management has now received a Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) permit for a 400,000 tonne plant at Colnbrook, near Slough.

The last hurdle before development, the permit means Grundon can now find contractors to build and operate the 120 million incinerator, which is expected to be up and running by late 2006.

Since waste for the plant, which is just west of Heathrow airport, is set to come from the household waste stream, the new incinerator is likely to significantly influence waste policy in West London, Surrey, and surrounding areas. It is well placed to take waste from the area as it is also close to the M4 and the M25 motorway where current widening work will make access to the incinerator easier.

Residues

Richard Skehens, managing director at Grundon, explained: “The EfW component of the plant will primarily burn the residues from source segregated domestic waste. These residues will be supplied through long term contracts with local authorities or third party waste collection companies, which themselves have long term collection, recovery and disposal contracts with local authorities, but do not have their own EfW facilities to deal with the residues from their recovery operations.”

An artist's impression of the Grundon EfW plant near Slough.

The Grundon development is seen by some in the industry as in a favourable location to take waste from Surrey where construction of energy from waste plants has run into strong opposition. Later this week the Guildford, Surrey protest group GAIN is holding a meeting to keep incineration “off the agenda” with an address from Anna Watson, Friends of the Earth's waste and resources campaigner. GAIN says that in Surrey “the threat of incineration has not gone away and important decisions on how waste is dealt with have yet to be made.” The Grundon development is expected to be acknowledged by council officers in any advice to Surrey members.

Permission

The planning permission for the plant was granted by Slough borough council in June 2000, and has since drawn a remarkable lack of public attention compared to other EfW projects. One neighbouring council, the London Borough of Hillingdon, carried out an internal inquiry to find out why officers had apparently failed to sufficiently discuss the proposal for the plant.

Through its subsidiary Lakeside Energy from Waste Ltd, which is handling the new plant, Grundon has now set up a community forum to debate the company's proposals.

Mr Skehens said: “We already have an active Community Liaison Group for the site, which provides not only a vehicle for debate about our proposals, but which will also contribute to the development of the Visitor Centre.”

Clinical waste

The Lakeside development will also include a 40,000 tonne materials recycling facility and a redevelopment of the existing clinical waste incinerator, for which a separate PPC permit has been obtained.

The 4 million clinical waste incinerator redevelopment will replace a facility that has operated on the site for 12 years. The new facility will process 1.25 tonnes each hour and should be completed by early 2005.

Steam from the clinical waste incinerator will be used in the adjacent energy-from-waste incinerator to improve energy efficiency. However, the two facilities will operate independently of each other, with their own dedicated environmental pollution control equipment.