WRAP takes an interest in the mill, situated in North Wales, because it awarded a £17 million grant in 2004 towards UPM Kymmene's £120 million project to convert the mill to using 100% recycled material.
In a report just published, WRAP says that “the project requires an additional consumption of recovered paper from the municipal waste stream of at least 1,605,000 tonnes over the first five years of operation (equivalent to 321,000 tonnes per annum). From 2004 to 2007 the actual consumption of municipal waste exceeded this by at least 10%.”
The work to convert Shotton saw three main developments. The first was to upgrade technology in the oldest recycled fibre plant processing lines and these were fully commissioned in June 2003. The second was construction of a new process line to increase output at the plant.
The third was for a combustor plant and it is thought that this is to where the WRAP money was directed. In 2003 it was unclear whether this part of the plant would have gone ahead without the WRAP support but in the event WRAP has helped towards the funding of a plant which now burns high volumes of sludge produced by the recycling process.
The combustor was operational from December 2006 and had to deal with more than more than 100,000 tonnes of additional sludge produced by the 100% recycled process.
Wood residues
There were discussions over how the combustor would be powered and it was decided that wood residues from forests would be used to co-fire the plant with the sludge.
WRAP itself notes in its report that this has only “just” been achieved without any other inputs. It said: “The fuel mix is just sufficient to combust the sludge produced.”
And, the market development organisation also emphasises that no refuse-derived fuels have been burnt in the process. It is understood that UPM Shotton has been asked on a number of occasions whether it would be willing to burn MBT residues in its plant.
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