The facility will be located at Binnegar Quarry, two miles from Wareham, and will incorporate a materials recycling facility (MRF), an inert recycling facility and an in-vessel composting centre for food and kitchen waste.
The council's decision to unanimously approve the proposals comes after SITA UK submitted a revised planning application for the development last November, in the wake of local residents concern over traffic issues (see letsrecycle.com story).
Reacting to the council's ruling, SITA UK's area manager Michael Cox said: “SITA UK's plans for a composting and recycling facility at Binnegar Quarry will play a key role in reducing the amount of material sent to landfill and we're delighted with the council's decision.
“We recognise a number of concerns about traffic have been raised during the planning process and we will be working hard with local communities and other interested parties to address these wherever possible.”
If built, the facility will deal with waste from areas in west and central Dorset, including Portland and Swanage.
A spokesman for SITA UK told letsrecycle.com that “the facility will deal with both municipal and commercial waste. We don't currently have any contracts in place but we have tendered for the Dorset county council contract (municipal contract for waste treatment and disposal) and the preferred bidder is likely to be announced in the next few weeks”.
The company aims to complete the MRF by the end of this year, with the in-vessel composting facility due for completion in 2009 and the whole site fully operational by the end of next year.
Calderdale
There was further good news for SITA UK with the announcement that it has been awarded the contract to deliver Calderdale council's waste services for the next seven years, starting on August 1.
The deal, which includes the option for a possible one year extension, gives the company responsibility for recycling and refuse collections in the West Yorkshire authority, as well as operating the council's waste transfer stations and household waste recycling centres.
It will also involve the kitchen waste trials currently being held in parts of the borough being rolled out across Calderdale, leading to weekly collections of kitchen waste and plastic bottles, and fortnightly collections of other recyclables and residual household waste.
SITA has stated that it will seek to develop a partnership with community group Kerbside Calderdale, who currently provide recycling collections to 26,000 households in the area.
Following the announcement, David Foster, municipal operations director for SITA UK, said: “We're delighted to have been awarded the contract with Calderdale council and are looking forward to working with the council and the residents to help improve recycling rates and meet the targets for landfill diversion.”
SITA UK's spokesman was unable to reveal the financial details of the contract, stating that they were “commercially sensitive”.
North East
The company is also moving forward with its plans to build a second energy-from-waste facility adjacent to its Tees Valley EfW plant at Haverton Hill, Billingham, at a cost in the region of £120 million.
A public exhibition was held yesterday (April 23) to give local residents their chance to view plans for the North East Energy Recovery Centre (NEERC), which would use moving grate incineration to process up to 256,000 tonnes of residual household and commercial waste a year.
SITA UK expects the proposed facility to generate 21 megawatts of electricity to be exported to the National Grid, with the potential to export heat to local businesses, though concrete arrangements are not yet in place for this.
Graham Ingleson, general manager of the Tees Valley EfW plant, said: “This will be an important development for the North-East region and will help confirm the Tees Valley as a centre for energy recovery.
He added: “The NEERC is an example of a new generation of facility that will produce renewable energy and reduce the need for landfill in the region.
“It will produce sufficient electricity each year to power a town the size of Hartlepool and also provide heat that can be piped to local industries, helping to reduce their energy needs and reduce the use of fossil fuels.”
The processes, design and appearance of the proposed NEERC are intended to complement those of the existing EfW plant, which currently deals with 250,000 tonnes of household waste a year from Tees Valley but is in the process having its capacity increased by 156,000 tonnes a year to allow it to deal with Northumberland's residual waste.
The plans also include a railhead which aims to maximise the use of rail transport to bring waste to the site and, as a result, reduce its impact on road traffic.
Commenting on the provision of waste to be processed in the planned facility, a spokesman for SITA UK told letsrecycle.com that “we haven't agreed contracts ahead of planning permission”.
“However, surrounding Tees Valley, more than 500,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste in the North-East region is currently sent to landfill. And, at Tees Valley, we have the potential for waste to be transported by rail to the new facility,” he added.
Following its public consultation, the company plans to submit a formal planning application to Stockton-on-Tees borough council in the early summer, and, if permission is given, it hopes to have the new facility up-and-running by the start of 2012.
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