Sheffield City Council awarded Onyx the 1.3 billion 30-year contract for the integrated waste management service in May and Onyx takes over the city's waste collection and disposal on 1 August. The contract includes refuse collection, disposal, recycling and recovery and responsibility for the city's district heating network and generation of electricity at the Bernard Road incinerator.
But the company has decided to shut the incinerator which has caused the council a lot of problems and saw it running up 28 million worth of debts to bring it up to European standards. Work started in 1990 but the incinerator has only recently become fully operational again. Earlier this year Greenpeace protesters closed down the incinerator for two days for being the “worst” in Europe.
Onyx believes that the best way to deal with the city's waste would be to close the incinerator and build a modern one as it said recycling alone cannot deal with the amount of waste generated. The company defended allegations that its new incinerator posed an environmental threat and said that the facility will meet the stringent emission controls contained in European environmental legislation due to take effect in 2005. Onyx says that building a new incinerator on the same site is more cost-effective than modernising the current one and it will continue to power the district heating network which is preferable to using fossil fuels.
Onyx has also outlined its plans for increased recycling in the city which includes a state-of-the-art material recycling facility at an existing Onyx site in Beighton, expansion of the bring bank scheme and civic amenity sites and an increase in kerbside collection of recyclable household materials. These initiatives should enable Sheffield to meet its recycling targets of 10% by 2003 and 18% by 2005. The city's current rate is 6%.
A spokesman for Onyx said: “Onyx advocates an integrated approach for waste management where recycling and waste to energy are complimentary in achieving the overall targets. This is consistent with the government’s desire for an integrated waste strategy.”
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