News in brief

Tamar and QV Foods open 1.5MW Lincolnshire AD plant

Built and operated by AD firm Tamar Energy, the 30,000 tonnes per year capacity plant is a joint venture between Tamar and QV Foods parent company A.H. Worth.

The plant will be largely supplied with vegetable trimmings and potato wastes from QV Foods operations to generate energy for the site, with the remainder of the energy exported to the National Grid. The plant will also produce a biofertiliser for farmland.

Minister of state for energy and climate change, Greg Barker MP, officially opened the plant today (May 6). He said: This is a great example of how local low-carbon generation can meet the energy needs of businesses. Not only does it divert waste from landfill, but it also provides cost effective and secure low-carbon generation. In the coming years I hope to see even more businesses using anaerobic digestion and other renewable technologies to meet their energy needs.

Alan Lovell, Tamar Energy Chairman added: Our joint venture with A.H. Worth is further proof of the business and environmental benefits that anaerobic digestion delivers in terms of energy generation and waste management. Its hugely encouraging to see a company of A.H. Worths stature embracing the technology.

The plant is Tamar Energys third operational AD facility in its plan for a UK network of AD facilities generating 100MW of renewable energy from organic waste.

PHOTO CAPTION: (L-R) Asda president Andy Clarke; QV Foods Duncan Worth; and Tamar Energys Alan Lovell and Willie Heller open the Holbeach AD plant

Biomass Suppliers List launches

The Biomass Suppliers List (BSL ) was launched last week (April 30) and is open applications from producers and traders of woodfuel and short rotation coppice.

Producers and traders are being urged to apply as early as possible to the BSL, which will be a publicly available online list of suppliers selling fuels that meet the forthcoming Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) sustainability criteria.

The public-facing list will be available to consumers once a sufficient proportion of traders have registered their fuels, which is expected to be later in Spring 2014 depending on the rate and distribution of applications.

It has been launched by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), which has appointed Genserv, partnering with Woodsure, HETAS and Borough IT, to operate the BSL.

Those wishing to register as a producer or trader of woodfuel should go to www.gov.uk/register-biomass-supplier.

Residents warned after Merseyside chemical fire

Residents in the Wirral are being warned against disposing of hazardous chemicals at household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs) after a small fire broke out at the Clatterbridge centre last month (April 19).

According to the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority (MRWA), while putting out the blaze, a number of bottles of chemicals were discovered, including sodium cyanide and formic acid.

The items which the Authority said presented a very serious risk to site staff and members of the public were contained in a black bin bag and deposited at the Clatterbridge site by an unknown visitor to the centre.

Carl Beer, MRWA chief executive, said: Fortunately the fire was small and easily dealt with. However, this could have been much more serious and could have been avoided in the first place if simple guidelines had been followed.

Great care has to be taken with hazardous chemicals of all kinds and you cannot simply dispose of them in skips at household waste recycling centres. Such chemicals can be highly toxic and very harmful.

Mr Beer added: We urge anyone seeking to dispose of chemicals of any kind to get in touch by calling MRWA on 0151 255 1444 so we can arrange the correct disposal method for that chemical and avoid incidents of this kind in the future.

We also ask anyone who sees chemicals being disposed of in skips at our HWRCs to alert a member of staff immediately.

MRWA operates 13 HWRCs in the Merseyside area through a contract with Veolia Environmental Services.

NI truck firm to pay more than 8,000 for waste offences

A Jonesborough truck company has been given a 7,500 confiscation order and fined a total of 550 by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) for three breaches of the Waste and Contaminated Land order 1997.

In March 2009, Agency officers visited a three-acre site being operated as McGeoughs Trucks and Spares Ltd on Edenappa Road, where large piles of scrap metal were found, including scrap parts, tyres, waste batteries, engine blocks and general scrap steel.

Some of the waste was estimated to be piled up at over seven metres high, while the site also had several oil spills and officers found evidence of waste having been burnt on site.

Linda McGeough, director of McGeoughs Trucks and Spares Ltd, said in an interview under caution that vehicles were brought in and de-polluted on site, adding that the site did not have an interceptor for the collection of run-off from the site.

Subsequent visits to the site by officers in August and November 2009 and March 2010 found that the site was continuing to be used to deposit and treat waste vehicles without the necessary waste licence in place.

And, soil samples taken from the site demonstrated that some of the waste was classified as hazardous due to the levels of mineral oils present.

The Agency said that the avoidance of the required measures by the firm conferred benefits in terms of business operation, increased competitiveness and financial advantage through avoidance of fees, capital costs for installing environmental control measures and costs for proper disposal of waste (particularly hazardous waste).