One of the largest waste authorities in the country, Lancashire had planned to incinerate around 325,000 tonnes of material by 2010 in order to reach its landfill diversion targets. But with the public mistrust of incineration the council now hopes to avoid this by using MBT.
Two years into its waste strategy, which will be reviewed in 2005, the council has a target to divert 77% of municipal waste from landfill by 2015.
Lancashire plans to build four MBT plants, which will handle a total of 80,000 tonnes of municipal waste each year. One of these plants already has planning permission – at the Leyland Technology Park.
Mechanical Biological Treatment plants, sometimes known as “bio-MRFs”, separate waste into dry recyclables and organic waste, with residual waste further separated using sieves and magnets before being dried using air currents. The residual waste that is not recycled or composted may then be incinerated or landfilled.
Contract
The council is now negotiating with bidders for the contract, which will involve the design, financing and operation of the plants. It is thought that the plants will be up and running by March 2005.
Martin Crabtree, Lancashire county council spokesman, explained: “Lancashire has to find somewhere for this waste to go, and so we have provisionally planned on two phases. Phase one will be for the Mechanical Biological Treatment of solid municipal waste. We are already actively looking for a contractor for this first phase, who will design, finance and operate the facilities in return for tonnage fees from the council and also rewards based on performance targets.”
He went on: “Phase two will include in-vessel composting and also provision for a materials recycling facility. These are some of a number of new facilities we hope will spring up in Lancashire, but at the moment we're concentrating on phase one.”
The Leyland facility will be seen as a showcase plant, Mr Crabtree said, and part of the contract would involve a new educational visitors' centre.
The county is currently producing a shortlist of preferred companies for the tender. It is not yet publicly known which companies are involved, but Shanks Waste Services are already involved in MBT proposals for Milton Keynes and Liverpool (see letsrecycle.com story) in partnership with Italian technology firm Ecodeco. SITA UK also has links to Lancashire county council through its waste disposal contract.
Lancashire currently recycles or composts about 16.8%, almost twice the average rate of the North West region of England. Authorities across Lancashire have received over 12 million in funding from sources such as the Lancashire Environmental fund and DEFRA to introduce recycling and composting schemes including segregated collections for 250,000 homes.
The county also has one of the largest home composting schemes in the country, which has just doubled in size with a further 30,000 free 220 litre screw-top composting bins and kitchen buckets available to residents who contact the manufacturers Straight Recycling Systems (tel: 0113 245 2244).
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