The London-based company's chief executive, Duncan Grierson, told letsrecycle.com that the firm was planning to add a 124,000 tonne-a-year capacity CHP facility to its planned operations in the Wentloog area in the east of the city. 
The plant would be powered by the organic biomass fibre, known as Sterefibre, which is produced during the autoclave process, and is expected to produce 6MW of electricity of which the majority will be exported to the National Grid.
Residual
Sterecycle's autoclave process takes residual waste and subjects it to high pressure and steam cleaning. This leaves recyclables such as plastic, aluminium and textiles and an organic fraction which can be used as biomass fuel.
Mr Grierson commented: “We are planning to start building the Cardiff facility early next year and it should be operational by 2011.”
He explained that it was always Sterecycle's intention to use the organic biomass fibre produced at its facilities to generate energy, although its first facility – which opened in Rotherham in Yorkshire 14 months ago – currently sends its organic output for use in brownfield land regeneration (see letsrecycle.com story).
The £50 million Cardiff facility was awarded planning permission in July, and the company has said that it aims to work with councils in South Wales to secure waste for the plant (see letsrecycle.com story).
In addition to the proposed Cardiff facility, Sterecycle has also received planning permission to double the capacity of its Rotherham plant. It is set to install £10 million worth of new autoclaving equipment at the site in order to double its processing capacity to 200,000 tonnes a year.
The firm is also working on an expansion plan which will see as many as six more plants developed across the UK. Mr Grierson said that it was particularly interested in building in London and Glasgow and there was a lot of interest from local authorities in the technology.
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