The number of waste management firms approved to ship refuse-derived fuel from the UK to mainland Europe for energy generation has risen to three, the Environment Agency has revealed.
Since this date, the company has received permission to send a further 50,000 tonnes of material to export outlets in Sweden and Estonia. The Agency confirmed it the firm has sent 9,000 tonnes of RDF to the Netherlands and Estonia under its permission thus far.
And now, waste management firm SITA UK has also received approval to send 26,000 tonnes of RDF to power generation facilities in Sweden and 2,500 tonnes of pre-sorted waste material to Rotterdam, where it is further processed and the resultant RDF is used in energy generation.
Peel Ports Recycling and Waste Management – which is a subsidiary of property giant Peel Group – has also received approval for the export of 50,000 tonnes of material to Sweden.
Commenting on its latest approvals, Ian Goodfellow, managing director of Shanks, told letsrecycle.com: “We are responding to a request from the cement industry in those countries seeking to find a source of fuel and they read about us through their networks and they know that we have had a couple of years of supplying industry in the UK.
“We would obviously like to be the fuel supplier to the UK industry and we have ability here, especially in East London, to increase the rate of fuel production and the commercial opportunity is there.”
SITA UK
French-owned waste management firm SITA UK said that it was undertaking the export of RDF ahead of developing its own energy recovery facilities in the UK.
David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of SITA UK said: “Producing fuel from material that would otherwise be landfilled provides a cost-effective and environmentally sound alternative to landfill and also provides a good substitute fuel for use in power stations and cement kilns – reducing the need to use fossil fuels.”
“This project will demonstrate that the waste we recover does have a value, both here and in Europe, where waste is routinely used as an alternative fuel and where demand outstrips supply.”
ESA
Commenting on the growing trend of the export of RDF to Europe, a spokesman for the Environmental Services Association told letsrecycle.com the current levels of export, although only a temporary solution, provided a sustainable outlet for the material compared to landfill.
“The UK currently has relatively low levels of domestic energy from waste capacity meaning that landfill is often the default option for materials which cannot be recycled,” he said.
“In the future there will hopefully be domestic recovery routes for material which is currently exported but, in the meantime, ESA believes that the export of RDF to other Member States provides a valid and more sustainable alternative to landfill.”
Other companies to have expressed an interest in shipping material to mainland Europe include Wiltshire-based Hills Waste Solutions, which mooted the possibility of sending 20,000 tonnes of RDF-a-year to Germany one its Westbury MBT becomes operational (see letsrecycle.com story).
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