Under the contract, which will run until 2017, an average of 15,000 tonnes per month of material will be sent to SITA UK’s dedicated RDF and solid recovered fuel (SRF) facility at Tilbury Docks, which is also under development in Essex.
Details of precisely when the contract will commence have yet to be confirmed, but a SITA spokesman said the RDF material sent to Tilbury would be exported to the firm’s alternative fuel customers in Europe.
SITA only last month (July 16) announced plans for the Tilbury Docks facility, which will have the capacity to produce more than 500,000 tonnes of alternative fuels each year for export abroad as well as domestic use (see letsrecycle.com story).
Essex council began procuring for five short-term contracts to dispose of around 180,000 tonnes per year of RDF – a by-product from the Courtauld Road MBT plant – in February (see letsrecycle.com story) in order to ‘test’ the energy disposal options for material ahead of a longer-term strategy for the material
‘The contract will ensure that the residual waste from this facility is treated in the most cost effective and environmentally sound way.’
Essex county council
The council previously said producing RDF would ‘improve’ on landfilling the MBT material, adding that the costs of RDF disposal would have to be £111 per tonne or less in order to at least equal the cost of landfilling the waste.
Confirming the SITA contract award, an Essex county council spokesperson said: “The contract will ensure that the residual waste from this facility is treated in the most cost effective and environmentally sound way.”
MBT
The RDF contracts will cover the MBT plant’s commissioning period and first 18 months of its operation, which the council previously said would give the contractor ‘an opportunity to demonstrate a consistent level of performance’ as well as avoiding the risk of ‘any gap in supply’ during commissioning.
Work began on the £120 million MBT plant last year as part of a 25-year contract agreed in June 2012 between the council and a consortium of waste management firm Urbaser and engineering company Balfour Beatty. The contract is thought to be worth £800 million over its lifespan (see letsrecycle.com story).
The facility, which is expected to become operational in 2015, will treat up to 417,000 tonnes of residual, trade and non-recyclable waste per year from Essex and is partly funded via £100.9 million PFI credits.
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