More than 50 firefighters were required to put out the blaze yesterday at the plant in the Bursom industrial park. Local reports suggest that the fire has caused “several million pounds worth of damage”.
Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service said that fire crews were expected to remain at the site for the rest of today, dampening down after the incident.
The plant had been due to open next month, but this now looks to be on hold. The fire is thought to have started in the plant’s ball mill, which was to be used to treat about 100,000 tonnes of residual waste a year.
The first in the UK, the machine was to take material from the city’s wheeled bin collections, using 42 tonnes of steel “cannon balls” to break up the waste before it could be separated for recycling. The council said it was too early to comment on the precise cause of the fire, the cost of damage or how long it will take to repair.
But, a council spokesman said: “The fire arose from engineering works being undertaken as part of the initial commissioning process and waste materials were not involved in the fire. “It is only the new ball mill processing of household waste (wheelie bins) that is affected, and this process was still only being tested prior to the fire,” the council added.
Collections
The council has said the fire did not “threaten or significantly affect nearby homes”, and pointed out that no one was injured in the incident. Refuse and green box recycling collections in the city will continue as normal, the council said, and it will be working with Biffa to recover from the setback “as quickly as possible”.
Leicester’s recycling plant is part of a new 300 million Private Finance Initiative contract with Biffa Waste Services, with 30 million provided by the government as PFI credits.
The fire is being seen as a “major setback” to Biffa’s attempts to increase Leicester’s 15% household waste recycling rate to 40% by 2005/06. A statement from Biffa is expected soon.
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