The plans to build the facility in a 62,000 square foot building on the city's Fengate Industrial Estate were approved yesterday (April 14) by the council's planning and environment committee.
The new facility is an essential element in the city council's integrated strategy to raise recycling rates
Spokesman, Peterborough city council
The materials recycling facility (MRF) is set to replace the city council's existing 75,000 tonne-a-year capacity MRF, which currently occupies an adjoining site on the industrial complex.
As part of the application, the council announced its plan to relocate its WEEE reuse centre to the front of the new MRF building, which would allow it to repair, recycle and dismantle 20,000 domestic appliances annually. The new MRF is expected to be operational by 2012.
A statement released by the city council said: “The new facility is an essential element in the city council's integrated strategy to raise recycling rates to over 65 per cent by 2020 and to use non-recycled waste as fuel in an energy-from-waste plant.”
Peterborough city council announced in June 2008 that it intended to move its £1 million MRF from its current location to the new Fengate site, with the aim of replacing the existing MRF with a £38 million energy-from-waste (EfW) facility (see letsrecycle.com story).
It submitted a planning application in January 2009 for the proposed EfW plant, which is intended to treat residual waste arising in the area (see letsrecycle.com story).
Energy-from-Waste
Speaking to letsrecycle.com today, a spokesman for the council said that the application for the EfW facility is “likely to go to the planning committee in June.”
Peterborough has also said that it hopes to build an anaerobic digestion facility on the land behind the resituated MRF, and, while it has not yet submitted a planning application for the proposed AD plant, it is hopeful of having it operational by 2010.
The spokesman said: “We are talking about using anaerobic digestion for separately collected kitchen food waste and we are looking at that.
He added: “We haven't got a planning application in as yet there is spare land at the back of the factory where the new MRF is being placed.”
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