A planning application has been submitted by Walsall-based Estech Europe for a plant that would use American “Fibrecycle” steam treatment technology to process mixed household waste from Wychavon, Wyre Forest, Bromsgrove and Worcester.
John Thompson, commercial director at Estech told letsrecycle.com the indoor plant would take in municipal solid waste and from it produce 20% metals and 60% organic fibre as well as 20% residue which would go to landfill.
Explaining the process, he said: “It is a steam technology process – there would be two autoclaves, each taking 20 tonnes of MSW in a pressure vessel. We then inject steam at 5-bar pressure and at a temperature of 160 degrees (centigrade) and then cook the material for about 45 minutes before we de-pressurise it. Overall, the process takes about an hour and a half.”
The plant, proposed for an industrial estate in Hartlebury, could become one of three such Estech facilities in Hereford and Worcester if all the company's ambitions go as planned. The three plants are linked to the 25-year Private Finance Initiative waste contract between Hereford and Worcester and Mercia Waste.
The company is deploying its 1 million mobile recycling plant in the Hartlebury area to show potential neighbours how the system operates.
Hereford
The company has already secured planning permission for a similar 100,000 tonne per annum steam autoclave plant in Hereford, and is currently carrying out site surveys before construction is expected to begin later this year.
Mr Thompson claimed that there is already good demand for the fibre material produced by the process, and Estech is already in talks with companies that wish to use it.
He said: “We're fairly advanced in the market, but the people need us to have a firm contract with Hereford and Worcester before we can sign a contract with them. The Hereford and Worcester contract has been approved by the members, it just needs to be signed off.”
Licence
Mr Thompson explained that if the fibre material is recycled – for example into construction products – the Estech plant needs only a Waste Management Licence to run. If the fibre is used to produce fuel for power co-generation, the plant would need an Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control permit. Mr Thompson said the fibre has sufficient calorific content to be used as a fuel, but that for the Hereford and Worcester operations the plan is to go down the recycling route.
Estech's technology featured in the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management Exhibition and Conference at Torbay in June. Since the exhibition, the company has announced that Roger Hewitt – who is also Treasurer of the CIWM – has “reluctantly resigned from the board of Estech Europe, owing to other business interests”.
Surrey
The Environment Agency has been supportive of the technology as it was demonstrated in Lincolnshire 18 months ago, Mr Thompson said, and added that the company has been encouraged to submit an application for the second round of Defra's New Technology Demonstrator Fund this autumn.
A bid for the first round of the Demonstrator Fund – which had involved a possible plant in Surrey, working with the SITA-subsidiary Surrey Waste Management – had “narrowly missed out”, Mr Thompson explained, because Estech wasn't quite ready at that stage.
Estech is also likely to supply its steam technology to the Scottish waste management company Alba, which is aiming to build a new plant in Fife.
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