Minister approves 34 million PFI for Northumberland

The credits are likely to help fund three new household waste recycling centres, a materials recycling facility, two composting sites and a mechanical biological treatment facility, the government said.

Announcing the PFI credits today, Mr Morley said: “This is a large project which depends in part for its success, on householders participating and in many cases converting, to recycling.”

As a PFI contract, the waste management project will be expected to meet targets higher than Northumberland county council's existing statutory targets.

One of the key targets is reducing the rate of waste growth from the current 5% each year, significantly above the national average of 3%, to just 1% by 2015.

The other targets the project will be expected to deliver include an overall long-term recovery target of 83%, with recycling and composting rates of 45% by 2010 and 54% in the long term.

Currently only 10% of the waste from Northumberland's 140,000 households is recycled or composted with most of the remainder going to landfill.

“This represents the first PFI approval in the area and the ambitious targets should set a benchmark for surrounding authorities,” Mr Morley said. “Instead of throwing all rubbish in one bin, people can show they care for the environment they live in by taking a little time and effort to recycle, re-use but also not produce as much rubbish in the first place.”

Waste minimisation

The announcement comes as Northumberland looks to tackle waste growth at its household waste sites that saw an increase of 4,500 tonnes of waste last year.

In 2003/04, Northumberland county council's household waste sites cost 2.5 million and received 50,000 tonnes of waste, 20% more than the year before. The council is now trying to tackle trade waste being illegally dumped at the sites using a permitting scheme.

Northumberland county council director of environment Harry Fawcett said: “Tackling abuse at these sites and growth in the amount of waste having to be dealt with is a key objective for local authorities.”