The incinerator will have an annual capacity of 56,000 tonnes when it begins operations in the next few months, processing municipal waste collected by North East Lincolnshire council.
The plant owner and operator is Newlincs Developments, a subsidiary of Electricite de France's Tiru, which was awarded North East Lincolnshire council's 25-year disposal and recycling contract in December 1999. Planning permission for the incinerator was granted in January 2001 and construction, started in February 2002, is now in its final stages.
The Environment Agency granted the firm a PPC permit for the site following a consultation with the local parish council, primary care trust, the council and English Nature.
Matthew Clark, environment manager at the Agency, said: “We have thoroughly scrutinised the permit application made by Newlincs and have taken into account the comments made to us by the health professionals, key environmental organisations and members of the public.”
“The Agency will ensure that the operation of the incinerator achieves a high level of protection for public health and the environment,” he added.
Contract
Ian Crummack, general manager of Newlincs, welcomed the Agency's decision. “It has been a long process linked to a 25-year integrated waste contract with North East Lincolnshire,” he said.
Mr Crummack said: “The plant itself is unusual. Rather than just exporting electricity to the national grid like most incinerators, we have a 20-year deal with an industrial manufacturing plant. All the heat and electricity is sold to the industrial plant next door, which also reduces the fossil fuel use on the estate.”
The bottom ash from the energy-from-waste facility is expected to be recycled into construction materials and metals recovered from the waste stream will be taken by metal reprocessors.
Mr Crummack said that although recycling the recovered materials from the incinerator does not count towards the council's recycling rate, Newlincs is making significant progress in other areas. “The recycling rate when we started the contract was 6% and the materials recycling rate today is 21%,” he said.
Newlincs has been working with North East Lincolnshire council on a number of projects to increase the recycling rate, including expanding kerbside triple box scheme for glass, cans and paper, a kerbside green waste collection, promotional campaigns at the community recycling centres and increasing the number of bring sites in the area.
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