Carbon8 gets green light for Avonmouth residue plant
Carbon8 Aggregates has been granted planning permission to develop a £4 million facility at Avonmouth near Bristol to treat residues from energy from waste plants.
The facility is the second to be developed by the company, which recycles flue gas treatment (FGT) residues from energy from waste plants and converts them into secondary aggregates for construction purposes.
Carbon8 hopes that completion of the Avonmouth plant will enable it to meet rising demand from the construction industry, as well as create around 20 new jobs.
It follows the installation of a £1.5 million second production line at its existing facility in Brandon, Suffolk last year, which began operations in 2012.
The Avonmouth plant has been made possible by a multi-million pound investment from Grundon Waste Management, which has also been used to increase silo capacity and aggregate storage at Suffolk.
The facility is scheduled to start operations in early 2016, with the firm also considering plans to develop a third facility in the north west of England.
Steve Grieg, managing director of Carbon8, said: Winning planning permission for this new facility is a significant step forward for Carbon8, cementing our position as the prime FGT recycling business in England and Wales.
“Demand from EfW operators is increasing all the time as they look for alternatives to disposing of FGT into landfill, and at the same time, our ability to produce carbon negative aggregates has really captured the imagination of the building trade.”
NLWA confirms LondonWaste Ltd contract
The North London Waste Authority (NLWA) has entered into a further 10-year waste contract with its wholly-owned company LondonWaste Ltd.
The contract will see LondonWaste accept, treat and dispose of residual waste from across seven London boroughs, as well as the reception and treatment of separately collected organic waste.
It will also see the firm transport separately collected recyclables for processing by third parties, and operate reuse and recycling centres on behalf of NLWA.
NLWA, which serves an estimated 1.9 million Londoners, expects the contract to provide an annual reduction in the cost of services and landfill tax by around £5 million per year.
The Authority has recently unveiled plans to redevelop the LondonWaste EcoPark, located in Edmonton, by 2025, to create a state-of-the-art waste treatment facility on the site (see letsrecycle.com story https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/nlwa-redevelop-edmonton-efw-plant-2025/).
Firefighters extinguish Viridor Bargeddie blaze
A fire that broke out at Viridor’s recycling hub near Glasgow yesterday morning (January 5) has been successfully extinguished.
Operations at the Bargeddie site remained limited today following the blaze, which erupted in an isolated storage bay – containing around 30 tonnes of locally collected waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
The Scottish Fire & Rescue Service was alerted to the incident at 8.30am, when personnel loading a vehicle at the site reported a small fire inside the bay.
Firefighters battled the blaze for around eight hours, concluding the operation at 5.30pm yesterday afternoon.
Martin Grey, communications manager for Viridor, confirmed the company’s compliance team had launched an investigation into the cause of the fire.
He added: “Viridor staff were immediately accounted for and worked throughout the day with fire service personnel to bring the incident under control. Our thanks go to personnel from the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service, Police Scotland, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency as well as our own staff for their professional response to this incident.”
SITA Trust partnership backs youth projects
A partnership between SITA Trust and youth charity the Foyer Foundation has announced a first round of funding for community projects in the North East of England.
The grants have been offered as part of the £500,000 Community Upgrade Challenge – a programme set up by the two organisations to upgrade local recreation facilities.
A total of four community projects will receive the grants during the first half of 2015, with costs ranging between £17,000 and £25,000.
Youth volunteers aged between 16 and 25 years will use the funding to lead projects to regenerate, improve or create leisure and recreation facilities.
Pete Sessions, of SITA Trust, said: “We’re impressed with the quality of work already undertaken by the young people. They have worked alongside the Foyer Federation to identify facilities in need of rejuvenation, they’ve created budgets, work plans, approached contractors for quotations and training providers for skills training. All of this has been done in a very professional manner which bodes well for the future of these projects”.
The SITA Trust allocates funds from the Landfill Communities Fund (formerly the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme).
Northern Ireland to extend carrier bag charge
Northern Ireland environment minister Mark H Durkan has confirmed plans to extend the levy on single-use carrier bags to those that can be reused.
From January 19, reusable bags priced less than 20p will also be subject to the 5p charge – with a view to further reduce waste.
Mr Durkan explained that all money raised on carrier bags would continue to be donated to good causes, and revealed that over 145 local communities and organisations would benefit from the £1.3 million allocated from the levy.
Mr Durkan said: “We have an existing 5p levy on single use bags to prevent waste. That’s working. However, the evidence shows that sales of cheap re-usable bags have increased significantly. So we need to put a levy on them as well in order to further reduce waste. That is what I am doing from 19 January. A 5p levy will go on any bags priced less than 20p.”
The single-use carrier bag levy was introduced in Northern Ireland in April 2013, with Wales adopting the charge in 2011 and Scotland following suit in October 2014.
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