Warwickshire in £5.5 million tender as landfill deal nears expiry

The tender was launched on Monday, 19 December, and is valued at around £5.5 million over the full five years of the contract.

The council said the waste will mainly comprise of municipal waste arising from Rugby Borough and Warwickshire operated household waste recycling centres.

Warwickshire handles around 130,000 tonnes of residual waste each year. Approximately 100,000 tonnes is sent to two different energy from waste (EfW) plants. While two landfill contracts (FCC and Veolia) handle the remaining 30,000 tonnes.

Veolia

The tender launched on Monday will replace the council’s landfill deal with Veolia, which sees around 10,000 tonnes of waste sent to the Ling Hall site near Rugby. This will expire in March 2023.

The new tender will last for an initial three years, with the possibility of a 24 month extension. This puts the estimated cost at £110 per tonne based on there being 10,000 tonnes of waste. There is no minimum tonnage requirement.

The council set out its plans to go to tender at a meeting last month (see letsrecycle.com story). The council’s cabinet then resolved that the procurement process can go ahead last week (15 December).

Contract

The local authority explained that applicants will be required to submit a bid to provide adequate reprocessing capacity at a site and to accept deliveries of municipal residual waste.

The council reiterated its ambition to seek ways to reduce waste and recycle as much as possible. Additionally, it aims “recover value from as much of its municipal waste as possible”, further reducing its carbon footprint.

Therefore, the document stated that the procurement process will not specify the treatment or disposal method and will allow tenderers to submit their “best environmental solution”, thus ensuring the waste hierarchy can be implemented where appropriate.

Background

Representing an estimated population of nearly 570,000, Warwickshire had a household waste recycling rate of 49.5% in the 2020/21 financial year.

The council has two EfW contracts to manage the county’s residual waste, one with Veolia’s W2R facility in Staffordshire and another with the Coventry and Solihull Waste Disposal Company (CSWDC) plant in Coventry.

Warwickshire also has a “long-term” contract with the FCC Environment to use the Bubbenhall Landfill site, located on the border of the Stratford-on-Avon district and the Rugby borough.

The two EfW contracts are meeting their maximum tonnages and the Bubbenhall contract is meeting its minimum tonnage, the report says.

“If no contract was procured the residual waste would be disposed of under existing contracts and it is likely that this would be more expensive based on the current and anticipated contract pricing,” the council added.