The local authority received the go-ahead from the Planning Service, which is an executive within the Department of Environment for Northern Ireland, on Thursday (April 2).
MBT plants are also proposed for Northern Ireland within a multi-million pound PFI waste treatment contract currently being tendered by arc21 – a group of 11 Northern Irish councils. These plants will have a combined capacity of 400,000 tonnes-a-year (see letsrecycle.com story) – yet are expected to take longer to come online.
Enniskillen
The Fermanagh plant, which is estimated to cost £3.5 million construct, will be developed at the council's existing integrated recycling centre at Drummee in Enniskillen, to the south of the county.
Gerald Knox, head of technical services at Fermanagh, told letsrecycle.com: “We have always realised that the bio-waste is an important fraction and we know it is important to divert it from landfill. It is a major step to receive planning permission.”
“The development allows us to live within the Northern Ireland Landfill Allowance Scheme (NILAS). Currently we can landfill around 16,000 tonnes of waste before being penalised but that goes down to 7,600 tonnes by 2020 and this facility will help us deal with that more easily,” he added.
A contractor has yet to be assigned to the plant, but the local authority said that it was hopeful of having the facility operational towards the middle of 2010. The facility will be used to treat municipal and trade waste collected by the council.
Mr Knox said that the council would now be “testing the market” to find recipients for output materials – such as refuse-derived fuel – created by the facility.
Under a Review of Public Administration, the formation of local government in Northern Ireland is set to change in 2011, with councils being amalgamated to leave just 11 local authorities instead of the current 26. As part of the changes, Fermanagh is set to be joined with Omagh to create a proposed Fermanagh and Omagh district council.
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