Renewi operates the Frog Island and Jenkins Lane MBT facilities in Rainham and Barking under a 25-year residual waste contract signed with ELWA in 2002.
The government expects councils to collect food waste separately from 2023, meaning people will put less organic matter in their residual waste bins.
A report which will go before an ELWA meeting on 1 October suggests the MBT facilities require residual waste to contain a certain proportion of organic waste to work as designed.
The report says there has been “discussion” between members about the residual waste treatment processes carried out by Renewi, which “appear likely to require a minimum amount of organic waste in the residual waste in order to function as designed”.
The report says ELWA is working with Renewi “on this risk”. It notes that Cllr John Howard, chair of ELWA, had asked officers to “actively engage” with Renewi before the end of their contract in 2027.
The report also says the suppliers of the MBT technology were in discussion with Renewi.
Waste composition
When contacted by letsrecycle.com, a spokesperson for Renewi said they had a “good relationship” with the council and would look to tackle the issue together.
They added that the MBT facilities should cope with changes to the composition of residual waste. They also said the proportion of organic waste in residents’ household waste would depend on their participation with separate food waste collections.
The spokesperson said: “The ELWA MBT technology is robust to changes in waste composition. Changes to inbound waste composition may result in changes to output products, mass balance and product quality.
“Any impact on the process due to proposed separate organics collection will need to be evaluated and would be subject to a number of factors, including participation rates.”
MBT
MBT is a family of technologies that partially process mixed household waste by mechanically removing some materials and by biologically treating others. This means the residual fraction is smaller, more stable, and available for several possible uses.
Both the Frog Island and the Jenkins Lane facilities are capable of processing 180,000 tonnes of waste per year.
According to ELWA’s report, recycling performance at the facilities has been “running below 2020/21 rates”. However, it adds “a steady improvement has been achieved from April to July and indications are that this will continue”.
Fire improvement works
The report also gives an update on the fire improvement works taking place at both facilities. The report says the works are “a direct result” of the current insurers, Aviva, demanding additional safety installation to detect and extinguish fires as a condition of continuing to provide property damage and business interruption insurance.
At Jenkins Lane, the works are expected to be completed in December 2021 and cost £4.1 million. Commissioning, hand-over and training will take part “in the early part of 2022”, the report says.
At Frog Island, commissioning and handover are expected to take place between January and February 2023.
ELWA
ELWA is the waste disposal authority responsible for the East London boroughs of Newham, Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge. It had a household waste recycling rate of 25.9% in the 2019/20 financial year.
Established in April 1986, ELWA has six years to run on its contract with Renewi. In January 2020, Renewi said the deal had become “onerous” due to the Dutch incineration tax and Brexit complications (see letsrecycle.com story).
Subscribe for free