Shipping Norfolks waste to incinerators in the Netherlands could be up to 34 a tonne cheaper than treating it through Norfolk county councils 25-year contract signed with Cory Wheelabrator, a report has claimed.
The contract worth an estimated 500 million was signed between the county council and a partnership comprising waste management firm Cory Environmental and American incineration specialist Wheelabrator in February 2012.
It involves the development of an energy-from-waste (EfW) plant in Kings Lynn, with the capacity to process up to 268,000 tonnes of waste per year, for which Defra has committed 91 million of PFI funding.
But, a report carried out by waste consultancy Eunomia on behalf of councillor Richard Coke, leader of the UKIP group on Norfolk county council, examining an alternative waste treatment bid received by the council claims that the authority could save up to 88 million over the life of the contract by sending residual waste to facilities in the Netherlands.
It states: This brief analysis strongly suggests that taxpayers would be better off if Norfolks residual waste was exported as SRF to existing facilities in The Netherlands (or potentially in other Member States) rather than it being sent to the proposed Willows incinerator.
Gate fees
According to Eunomia, the gate fee agreed by the council and the contractor for every tonne of waste treated at the plant will be 108.90 as of April 2015, rising to an average of 140.50 over the life of the contract.
But, the alternative offer to supply the waste as solid recovered fuel (SRF) for incineration at Dutch firm Afval Energie Bedrijfs EfW facility in Amsterdam involves a gate fee of around 75-85 per tonne for a minimum of 40,000 tonnes of waste per year, over a period of at least three years. This would include the cost of processing the material and transportation to the Netherlands.
In its report, Eunomia concedes that these gate fees could be expected to rise by around 2-5% per annum, but states that there is an increasing demand from overseas for long term off-take contracts of up to 10 or 15 years for waste derived fuels as operators become more strategic in how they aim to fill capacity gaps at large scale plants.
Options
Commenting on the report, Mr Coke, said: “There may well be other cheaper options or a combination thereof, including extending existing contracts, but the proposal was selected as the comparator as it could deal with all of Norfolks waste, does not require government subsidy, could be up and running within a year and, most importantly, that it is beneficial to tax payers both in Norfolk and the UK.
The proposals to build the Willows EfW plant in Kings Lynn have been met with considerable local opposition, and a public inquiry was launched earlier this year into whether to award planning permission for the plant. Communities secretary Eric Pickles is set to make a decision on the plans by mid-January 2014.
County councillors have long debated cancelling the controversial contract, but have deferred making a final decision on whether to do so until the outcomes of the independent review and the public inquiry are known. In June 2013, a county council report found that cancelling the 25-year contract for the incinerator with Cory Wheelabrator could cost more than 30 million (see letsrecycle.com story).
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