Lancashire opens bids for £10m composting contract

However the estimated £10 million arrangement, which will last for up to six years, does not extend to the treatment of household food waste which was previously mixed in with the green waste fraction.

The county council is seeking an open-windrow composting facility to accept and compost green waste collected from the kerbside as well as household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs) – with capacity to be determined on a year-by-year basis.

It stipulates that ‘no minimum tonnages are guaranteed’ and may appoint more than one operator to service the contract.

Mixed garden and food waste was previously treated at the council-owned Global Renewables’ MBT plants, which used in-vessel composting to process the material. However, in February the plants were mothballed resulting in 250 job losses (see letsrecycle.com story).

Around 90,000 tonnes of green waste arisings are collected across Lancashire each year, but the contract to process the material has been divided into 12 separate lots across district and borough councils and HWRCs.

These include West Lancashire; Chorley; South Ribble; Preston; Fylde; Wyre; Lancaster; Ribble Valley, and 11 HWRCs divided across two lots.

Blackpool

The county council is also contracting a £190,000 treatment service on behalf of Blackpool council, which also previously sent its organic waste to the two MBTs.

Cutting services at the MBT plants is expected to save the county around £5-8 million a year by the end of 2018, but it has meant some districts and boroughs in Lancashire having to modify local organics collection services in line with this decision. Last month, South Ribble confirmed that it would cease collection of commingled food and garden waste in June.

The open-windrow contract is expected to commence from November 2016 and will expire in 2020 with an option to extend for a further two years. The council has not indicated whether it will draw up new plans for food waste disposal in Lancashire.