It is hoped that the contract will help divert an estimated 30,000 tonnes of waste from landfill or incineration each year in the county and save taxpayers in Norfolk between 368,000 and 800,000, depending on the amount of dry recyclables collected.
The collected material will be sent for processing at the countys main materials recycling facility (MRF) in Costessey near Norwich, which will require an upgrade to take in the increased tonnages.
The Norfolk Waste Partnership (NWP) which is made up of six district councils in Norfolk as well as Norwich city council and Norfolk county council has agreed in principle to the contract, but it must now be passed for approval at each individual council before it can be formally signed.
As each authority in the NWP manages its own collection services, the types and tonnages of materials collected are likely to differ between each authority if the contract comes into force, as expected, from April 2014.
Norse Commercial Services is part of the Norse Group and a fully-owned subsidiary of Norfolk county council. The NWPs previous MRF contract was also with Norse Group, but the partnership went out to tender for a new contract with the aim of increasing the amount of recyclable materials processed at the MRF, with Norse Commercial Services the winning bidder.
In May, Norse also entered into a service level agreement (SLA) with the county council to operate 19 of the countys household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs), which had previously been operated by Norwich-based firm May Gurney (see letsrecycle.com story).
Kings Lynn and West Norfolk
Kings Lynn and West Norfolk council agreed to the contract with Norse at a council cabinet meeting last week (July 30) and it is expected that the contract will gain final approval by all councils in the partnership by September 2013.
Deputy leader and environment portfolio holder at Kings Lynn and West Norfolk council, Brian Long, said that Norse would need to invest several million pounds in upgrading the Costessey MRF in order to service the contract.
‘Sadly there is more than enough domestic and commercial waste in Norfolk to also warrant a waste treatment facility for the waste left over which will save taxpayers in Norfolk millions compared with the cost of using landfill’
David Harrison, Norfolk county council cabinet member for the environment
He said that the contract would enable the council to collect glass which residents in the area can currently only recycle at bring-banks rigid plastics and tetrapaks on top of materials currently collected such as plastic bottles, paper, cardboard and tin.
Earlier this year, the council introduced a fortnightly recycling collection alternating with a fortnightly residual waste collection in the borough, as well as a new weekly food waste collection. These changes have increased the amount of recyclable material collected in the district by an estimated 8,000 tonnes, according to Cllr Long.
This, alongside the proposed Norse contract, means more of the household waste in Norfolk would be recycled, and therefore diverted away from being used as feedstock for the controversial proposed energy-from-waste (EfW) incinerator in Kings Lynn.
Cllr Long, who opposes the incinerator plans, told letsrecycle.com that the Norse contract could impact on the viability of the EfW facility: Figures show around 210,000 tonnes per year of waste arisings in Norfolk and if you take nearly 40,000 tonnes away from that you get very, very close to the 170,000 tonnes the county is committed to sending to the incinerator. To me that is dangerous economics.
However, Norfolk county councils cabinet member for the environment, David Harrison, denied that this would impact on the plans for the incinerator in Kings Lynn.
He said: Sadly there is more than enough domestic and commercial waste in Norfolk to also warrant a waste treatment facility for the waste left over which will save taxpayers in Norfolk millions compared with the cost of using landfill.
Kings Lynn incinerator
Norfolk county council awarded a 500 million, 25-year deal to Cory Wheelabrator to build an energy-from-waste (EfW) incinerator in Kings Lynn in February 2012 (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, the proposals have met with considerable local opposition and a public inquiry was launched earlier this year into whether to award the facility planning permission. The inquiry ended on May 17 and communities secretary Eric Pickles is set to make a decision by mid-January 2014, following a report due to be issued by the inquiry inspector in September 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story).
In June 2013, a county council report found that cancelling the 25-year contract for the incinerator with Cory Wheelabrator could cost more than 30 million (see letsrecycle.com story). An independent review was then also commissioned by the county council to look into the councils process of awarding the incinerator planning permission.
County councillors have long debated cancelling the controversial contract, but have deferred making a final decision on whether to do so until the outcomes of the independent review and the public inquiry are known. In the meantime, the council has agreed to look into alternative waste treatment plans to the EfW incinerator as a contingency plan (see letsrecycle.com story).
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