Manchester councils agree landfill contracts

The contracts will mean that Manchester and surrounding councils have somewhere to put residual waste up to 2013, by which time the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority, hopes that the sub-region will have a 50% recycling rate.

The Authority, acts for the councils, and has signed contracts with Biffa, Veolia, Viridor Waste Management and the Waste Recycling Group.

The contracts are:

• BIFFA – Roxby landfill site, Humberside for a minimum of 400,000 tonnes in 2008-09; 300,000 tonnes in 2009-2010 and 2010-11; the right to extend this to 2011-2012 and 2012-13
• Veolia – Highmoor landfill site, near Oldham, for a maximum of 100,000 in 2008-2009; 75,000 in 2010-11, 2011-12, and 2012
• Viridor Waste Management – Pilsworth landfill site, Bury, for a minimum of 100,000 tonnes for 2008-09 to 2012-13 inclusive
• Waste Recycling Group, Arpley landfill site, Warrington for a minimum of 200,000 tonnes in 2008-09; 150,000 tonnes in 2009-10; 100,000 tonnes in 2010-11; with options to extend the contract to 2011-12 and 2012-13.

The Authority, which provides waste disposal services to 958,000 households across Greater Manchester, wants to increase its recycling and composting rate to 50% by 2013, but needs landfill capacity while new facilities are being built.

These include mechanical and biological treatment and anaerobic digestion facilities – the Authority wants to create wants to produce fuel from waste. The contracts also means rail can continue as the main mode of transport of material.

Safe disposal

Authority chairman Councillor Neil Swannick said: “We must arrange for the safe disposal of the 1.4 million tonnes of municipal waste that is generated in Greater Manchester every year whilst minimising the environmental impact and pressing down on costs.

“We are focusing our efforts on minimising the amount of material that we throw away and that ends up in landfill sites. In a decade we will have gone from landfilling a million tonnes of municipal waste each year to a fifth of that. And if we can reduce this amount still further – or do it quicker still – then that is what we shall do.”