Leicestershire and Staffordshire go for PFI

The two local authorities have both submitted their initial proposals – called an Expression of Interest – to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which will decide if the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) cash should be approved.

This preliminary stage for funding approval requires councils to specify their preferred technology option for treating residual waste and both have chosen energy-from-waste (EfW) plants – proposals to which lobby group, Friends of Earth, has raised objections.

Staffordshire

If PFI funding is approved, Staffordshire aims to build a plant which would have the capacity to treat 300,000 tonnes of waste each year, from Staffordshire, as well as neighbouring Warwickshire and Walsall.

The plant would be able to generate 18 Megawatts of power – enough to power about 20,000 homes – and the value of the contract is likely to be £600 milion over 25 years. The company securing it would be expected to design, construct and operate the facility, which is expected to be up-and-running by 2012/13.

A number of sites in south Staffordshire have been earmarked and waste chiefs are presently drawing up planning applications before choosing the preferred location. This follows a consultation on the county's Zero Waste to Landfill 2020 document, carried out over summer, in which the council said around 90% of respondents supported recycling services in tandem with EfW as a means to tackle waste.

Councillor John Wakefield, Staffordshire's cabinet member for economic prosperity and sustainable communities, said: “Our summer-long consultation gave everyone the chance to have their say about the solution. The vast majority supported our clearly stated strategy of maximising recycling and generating energy from the residual waste.”

He added: “The technology we want to use is tried and tested and used in communities across some of the world's most environmentally aware and developed nations.”

Staffordshire already has an EfW plant in Stoke-on-Trent, where a third of the county's 600,000 tonnes of annual waste arisings is converted to energy. The recycling/composting rate for 2005/06 – the most recently audited figure – was 34%.

Leicestershire

In Leicestershire, the council's waste experts have said the county would be aiming for a 50% recycling/composting rate, with the remaining residual waste treated in the EfW facility to produce Combined Heat and Power.

They have predicted the £100 million facility would need to process around 190,000 tonnes a year, with the contract – expected to last 25-30 years – likely to be awarded next June (see letsrecycle.com story).

Objections

Friends of the Earth has objected to EfW because it wastes “potentially recoverable material” and because plants “are plagued by failures in emissions control”.

Leicestershire Friends of the Earth spokesman Malcolm Hunter said: “As an alternative to landfill, mechanical and biological treatment, as used in Leicester city, would be better for the environment, cheaper and could be introduced more quickly.”

The campaign group, which obtained the county's funding submission from the council under the Freedom of Information Act, has argued that there “are much better ways” than incineration to reduce the amount of biodegradable waste to landfill. The group advocates “stronger government action to reduce things like unnecessary packaging” and “better recycling schemes; collecting a greater range of sorted waste”.

A Leicestershire county council spokesman said: “The final technology solution has not been decided and the authority will be going forward to the market in the future with an open output based specification for dealing with residual waste that will consider all technologies for the treatment of Leicestershire's long term residual waste.”