Viridor signs contract for ‘phase II' of Runcorn EfW development
Earlier this year, work started on ‘phase I' of the project, which is a three-way joint venture between Viridor, John Laing and Ineos Chlor and is also being built by Keppel Seghers (see letsrecycle.com story). This part of the plant will primarily burn refuse-derived fuel produced from waste generated in Greater Manchester, under Viridor Laing's £3.8 billion PFI with the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority.
However, ‘phase II' is being managed and funded exclusively by Viridor and its parent company Pennon to the tune of £160 million and will provide 375,000 tonnes a year of extra merchant capacity – for municipal and commercial and industrial waste in the North West. Viridor says that this fits with its strategy to build and operate EfW plants and said it is confident that the landfill tax escalator will be a big enough driver to ensure the capacity is filled.
Colin Drummond, Viridor chief executive, said: “Construction of Phase II will be coordinated with ongoing work on Phase I which permits significant cost savings. It will enable Phase II to come on stream by 2014/2015 by which time large scale energy from waste facilities will be cost competitive against landfill with landfill tax by then being £80 per tonne.”
Agency announces 2011 WEEE scheme approvals
The Environment Agency has re-approved the two waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) producer compliance schemes whose three-year approval expires this year, and approved one new compliance scheme.
The majority of schemes' three-year approvals covered 2007 to 2009 and as such they were considered by the Agency last year – when two schemes, Biffa Transform and Econo-Weee originally had their applications turned down, before winning appeals over the decision (see letsrecycle.com story). Those schemes are now approved for 2010-2012, and will be expected to submit an application for re-approval again in summer 2012.
This year's list of applications, which were all approved by the Environment Agency, includes: the Accerio WEEE scheme operated by Accerio BV; the Anovo UK PCS operated by Anovo UK Ltd; and, the CCR Relectra scheme operated by CCR UK Ltd. The three schemes' approval will run for 2011-2013.
Reading launches community bulb recycling initiative
The Berkshire local authority, working with specialist lamp recycler Recolight and the Community Bulb Recycling Alliance, intends to create ‘recycling champions' who will be responsible for recycling light bulbs in specially designed containers placed at community locations. The Recolight container, called the Bulbstore Mini, was specially designed by students at the Open University and has been independently tested. The waste bulbs are then taken to a central point for recycling. The council is now urging potential volunteers who would be willing to give up some of their time and perform the role of ‘recycling champions' to come forward. The initiative was launched nationwide last month (see letsrecycle.com story).
Warren Swaine, lead councillor for environment and sustainability at Reading borough council, said: “A lot of attention has been given to recycling schemes that are aimed at stopping climate change or reducing landfill but there are some items should be recycled simply because it is the right thing to do.”
Equity firm invests £16.75m in Peterborough project
Peterborough Renewable Energy Limited (PREL) has received a £16.75 million investment to develop the next stage of its large-scale waste to biomass power generation project from the £300 million Mountgrange Real Estate Opportunity Fund.
The money from the Fund, managed by Mountgrange Investment Management, is to go towards the development of the £250 million resource recovery park being constructed by PREL, which is a subsidiary of Green Energy Parks. The project is centred on a 79MW waste-to-biomass facility which will take mixed waste and biomass and apply gasification and modern plasma vitrification techniques. PREL had to submit scaled down plans for the plant in October 2007 and was granted planning permission in 2009. The firm is hopeful that it will be operational by the end of 2013.
Chris Williams, managing director of PREL, said: “With this backing PREL will be able to deliver a project that delivers considerable benefits for both the community and the environment. Once constructed, we hope that Energy Park Peterborough will be the first in what will become a nationwide network of biomass renewable energy facilities for Green Energy Parks.”
Viridor welcomes CBI report on energy-from-waste
The Taunton-based company said that the report, published last week (see letsrecycle.com story), would help address the twin issues of long term energy generation in the UK and also the fact that the UK has diminishing landfill capacity. And, the waste management firm said that energy-from-waste could help provide up to 6% of the UK electricity demand by 2015.
Commenting on the report, Colin Drummond, chief executive of Viridor, said: “This CBI briefing is timely and important, coming as it does at a crucial stage of the UK government's waste policy review. Viridor wholly concurs with the main findings and recommendations.”
Brent Lib Dems claim waste plans hide AWC intent
The Liberal Democrats have accused the London borough of Brent of not being honest with residents and hiding their intention to move to fortnightly bin collections under changes to waste services in the North London borough.
Councillor Daniel Brown has claimed that a consultation currently running about the future of waste collections in Brent does not make it clear that the Labour-controlled council wants to scrap weekly bin collections and move to fortnightly collections. Cllr Brown said the only mention of this proposal is on page 60 of the 118-page document, with another brief mention in the appendices. Brent is discussing the potential of adopting alternate weekly collections (AWC) in an effort to save £1.02 million per year on treatment and disposal costs by 2012/13 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Cllr Brown, who is environment spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats in Brent, said: “When the council are proposing a change as fundamental as scrapping people's weekly bin collections, residents have every right to expect that the council will be honest about the fact, not bury the bad news deep in wordy reports in order to hide it.”
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