The plant, at Reliance Street in North Manchester, is one of five of its kind using the technology being jointly developed by the Recycle for Greater Manchester partnership between the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA) and its contractor Viridor Laing.
It has the capacity to treat up to 100,000 tonnes-a-year of residual waste, with outputs including recyclables and a solid recovered fuel (SRF). The SRF is being sent the energy-from-waste facility being developed by Viridor in partnership with chemicals company INEOS Chlor at Runcorn in Cheshire.
As is the case with three of the other four MBT facilities being developed under the PFI deal, the Reliance Street site is also home to an anaerobic digestion facility, with organic material separated out earlier in the process being treated to produce energy, heat and a compost-like material
Work on the Reliance Street facility got underway at the very start of the GMWDAs contract with Viridor Laing, in April 2009 and has been carried out by Viridor Laings subcontractor Costain and anaerobic digestion specialists Enpure (see letsrecycle.com story).
The plant has been under commissioning, which involves testing every part of the kit to make sure it works as planned, since September 2010, and last week (April 7), saw the final acceptance of this following a 28 day operational test.
Major technology sites
The GMWDAs treasurer and deputy clerk, John Bland, said: Were delighted that Reliance Street is now fully operational, its the first of our major technology sites to complete all of its testing and are keen to see the further four sites come on line over the coming months.
The other MBT facilities being developed under the contract which also include AD technology are at Longley Lane in Manchester, Cobden Street in Salford and Bredbury Parkway in Stockport. A further, at Arkwright Street in Oldham, is MBT only.
Together the five sites will eventually generate an expected 275,000 tonnes-a-year of solid recovered fuel to be sent by rail to the EfW plant being built at INEOS Chlors Runcorn site. This facility, which is the single largest operation being built under the PFI, is expected to be up-and-running in 2012 (see letsrecycle.com story).
The significance of the completion of work on Reliance Street, and the size of the challenge ahead in completing the remaining facilities, were both alluded to by Peter Heginbotham, chairman of Viridor Laing (Greater Manchester).
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He said: The construction and testing phases have been challenging and not without their hurdles, not least the heavy snow of a few weeks ago.
However, working together across our strong partnership we are proud to announce the first of five MBT-ADs is fully operational and we look ahead to completing the remainder of the facilities together with the Runcorn plant to support the Greater Manchester region in delivering its world class Recycling and Waste Solution.
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