Shanks Group has completed the sale of its 150,000 tonnes per year capacity materials recycling facility (MRF) and adjacent sorting hall site in Blochairn to Glasgow city council, the firm announced today (March 28).
Glasgow council said the acquisition would allow it to “re-commence” in-house processing of mixed dry recyclables, but estimates that it will sort up to 50,000 tonnes per year of material at the MRF.
The material will come predominantly from households, according to the council, but there will also be “scope to utilise any remaining headroom to process commercial dry mixed recyclables”.
The council is not disclosing the amount paid for the facility, but the price is thought to be in the region of 4.5 million.
A spokesman for the council said: “Acquisition of the Blochairn site will allow the council to re-commence in-house processing of dry mixed recyclables within a modern MRF. This will improve the councils recycling levels through increased efficiencies and also generate additional income.”
Shanks
The 6 million Blochairn MRF opened in 2011 on the same day as Shanks 8 million anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in nearby Cumbernauld, which has the capacity to process 60,000 tonnes of household and commercial food waste per year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Taking material from local authority customers such as North Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire as well as commercial and industrial customers, the state of the art MRF was designed to achieve a 95% recovery rate from non-segregated general waste as well as comingled recyclable material. The remaining non-recyclable waste was then turned into solid recovered fuel (SRF) for heat and power.
‘We are pleased to have been able to complete the handover of this facility on time to Glasgow city council. We can now focus the UK business on our core municipal contracts and producing fuel for our customers.’
Peter Eglinton, managing director of Shanks UK municipal division
However, the Blochairn site was closed in late 2013, according to Shanks, following the sale of its solid waste collection business to waste management firm Biffa for 9.5 million, first announced in October 2013. The sale was ompleted in January 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Prior to this, though, the MRF had been mothballed partly due to a decrease in volumes at the site when the company posted pretax losses of 35.3 million (see letsrecycle.com story).
In addition, since the sale of some of its business to Biffa, Shanks has also been seeking a buyer for its Kettering MRF. The combined sale of both the Blochairn and Shanks MRFs had been expected to bring in around 6 million.
Peter Eglinton, managing director of Shanks UK municipal division, said: We are pleased to have been able to complete the handover of this facility on time to Glasgow city council. We can now focus the UK business on our core municipal contracts and producing fuel for our customers.
According to the findings of the companys quarterly report in February, Shanks expects its profits to increase from the sale of its solid waste activities to Biffa, despite challenging market conditions (see letsrecycle.com story).
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