With landfill sites in the area nearly full, the plant at the North Quay is to be a major cornerstone of the waste company's 25-year contract with East Sussex county council and Brighton & Hove city council – if planners give it the green light.
 Computer-generated image of the proposed Newhaven energy recovery plant |
The plant has been designed to handle 210,000 tonnes of waste each year – just over half the household waste generated in the South Downs area.
It will allow Onyx to generate 16.5 MW of energy for sale to the national grid. This is the equivalent of enough electricity to power 16,500 homes.
The company has insisted the plant will not compromise recycling and composting, and pledged that waste will not be brought in from outside the East Sussex or Bright & Hove areas to be incinerated.
“Progressive”
John Collis, project director at Onyx South Downs, said: “The landfill sites in East Sussex are almost full. This means that there is nowhere for the waste to go and we have to work out new ways of dealing with it. The development of the energy recovery facility, together with new facilities for composting and recycling, represents a progressive, integrated and sustainable solution.”
Hopes are the Newhaven plant will be operational in 2009. Before this, Onyx must gain both planning permission and an integrated pollution prevention and control permit from the Environment Agency.
Opponents
Local opponents of the Newhaven incinerator are already geared up to challenge the development, with demonstrators targeting council offices earlier this month as the area's Waste Local Plan was finalised.
Pressure group Friends of the Earth South East accused councillors of ignoring independent inspectors' advice to raise recycling and composting targets in the “flawed” Waste Local Plan.
The group wants to see half of the area's household waste recycled by 2015, while inspectors suggested a 45% target for that year and the Waste Local Plan opts for a 38% target.
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Brenda Pollack, regional campaigns co-ordinator at FoE South East, said: “The council needs to go back to the drawing board. We want to see a recycling-led strategy, not an incinerator-led one. We shouldn't be burning rubbish that could be recycled or composted.”
Sheffield
The energy recovery route has already been employed by Onyx as the basis of its long-term waste contracts in Hampshire, Tyseley and Sheffield.
The application for the Newhaven plant comes as Onyx is starting up its replacement incinerator for the long-term contract the company holds in Sheffield. The Bernard Road incinerator has been replaced by a plant on the same site, using newer technology.
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