The council blamed the high price of converting waste to fuel pellets and transporting them north for incineration at Slough Heat and Power for the change.
”The price of sending the pellets up there meant it was no longer efficient to do it that way.“
David Greenfield, East Sussex county council
Council assistant waste services manager David Greenfield said: “The price of sending the pellets up there meant there was a negative value… it was no longer efficient to do it that way.”
The council was contracted to send 75,000 tonnes of municipal waste to Reprotech every year until 2007. This waste will now be delivered directly to Biffa's Pebsham landfill next door until 2007. After that, it will be brought under the control of Onyx's 25-year contract with East Sussex and Brighton & Hove.
Fire
A fire at Reprotech in 2002 also led the council to review its treatment of waste.
Council spokeswoman Jan Wright said: “The market has reduced for fuel pellets and we agreed with Reprotech that it wasn't worth doing the place up again to make pellets when there was no longer a market for it,” she said.
Waste continued being delivered to the site after the fire in 2002, with Reprotech transporting it to a neighbouring Biffa landfill site.
Mr Greenfield denied the decision to end the RDF contract was caused by environmental concerns about incineration. “It was not an environmental decision, but an economic one,” he said. Onyx's plans for the area include a new energy from waste plant to open in 2009 in Newhaven. This could take 225,000 tonnes waste per year.
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