Swansea’s only landfill site, Tir John in Port Tennant, is to close in February 2022 because it has nearly reached capacity.
Last year, Swansea suggested it could boost its recycling rate by 6% if it began sending its residual waste to EfW instead of the site, as it could recycle bottom ash (see letsrecycle.com story).
Cllr Mark Thomas, Swansea’s cabinet member for environment enhancement and infrastructure management, told a council scrutiny panel on 15 December: “We are in the process of moving away from landfill.
“In February of next year – so it’s only a couple of months away – Tir John is going to close, and we are in the middle of securing a contract for an energy from waste facility to take our residual or black bag waste.”
Cllr Thomas said negotiations were still ongoing but would be concluded “imminently”.
The Tir John landfill site is owned by the council and operated by Enovert.
Recycling rates
Labour-controlled Swansea council represents an estimated population of just more than 245,000 and recorded a household recycling rate of 64.6% in the 2020/21 financial year, a reduction of 0.3%.
This means Swansea provisionally sits 17th in a league table of recycling performance for the whole of Wales.
Cllr Thomas said switching to EfW from landfill would help improve Swansea’s recycling rate.
“Most of the other 22 authorities send most of their waste to energy from waste,” Cllr Thomas said.
“Through taking stuff to landfill you get no recycling benefit, but if it had all gone to an energy from waste facility, we would have expected at least 5%.
“So, we could have been looking at – in a different set of circumstances – our performance being around 69, 70%, which would have put us in the top quartile.”
The Welsh Government has set a 70% recycling and composting target for councils by 2025.
Should an authority miss, they could face fines of £200 for every tonne by which they are short of the target, representing £250,000 for every 1%.
Costs
According to the report, Swansea’s waste service has an annual budget of around £12.5m, comprising £19.3m in costs and £6.8m in income generated primarily through commercial contracts or the sale of recyclables.
At the moment, there aren’t any zero cost ways of getting rid of our residual waste
Matthew Perkins, the council’s group leader for waste management, told the committee that Swansea would save no money through not paying landfill tax, as “energy from waste is more expensive than landfill”.
Cllr Thomas said the facility chosen by the council would be “out of county” because there are no EfW facilities near Swansea.
This would mean there would be added transport costs, Cllr Thomas said, though sending waste to EfW is still a “more climate emergency friendly thing to do” than sending it to landfill.
He added: “It is definitely better to move away from landfill, but it’s not at zero cost, either financially or environmentally.
“At the moment, there aren’t any zero cost ways of getting rid of our residual waste.”
Once the contract begins, Mr Perkins said, refuse lorries will deposit black bag waste at the Llansamlet baling plant and bulk it up.
From there, larger vehicles will then haul the bales to the EfW facility outside the county.
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