After unveiling plans to move away from its reliance on landfill last year (see letsrecycle.com story), the company is proposing to treat 52,000 tonnes-a-year of source-separated food waste at an anaerobic digestion (AD) facility in Neath Port Talbot.
The multi-million pound plant would be located next to the companys Pwlfawatkin landfill site in Potardawe and would generate around two megawatts of renewable energy, alongside a liquid soil fertiliser.
It is being proposed primarily to treat 41,000 tonnes-a-year of source-separated municipal waste under a contract with the South West Wales Food Treatment Procurement Hub, for which Waste Recycling Group (WRG) is currently bidding. The South West Hub includes the local authorities of Bridgend, Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire, Swansea and Vale of Glamorgan and WRG is one of four companies currently in the running for the work.
“We are still in the process for bidding for the work and the timeline means that we need to get a planning application in first, explained Mike Bullard,” head of bioenergy at WRG.
TEG contract
Details of WRGs anaerobic digestion plant emerged as organic waste recycling specialist the TEG Group announced that its subsidiary TEG Environmental has won a contract with WRG to process waste in TEGs current network of facilities.
The contract will commence in the second half of 2012 and will expire in March 2015. Its value will range from 2-3 million depending upon the volume of waste delivered over the period.
Commenting for TEG, chief executive Mick Fishwick said: “We are delighted to be working with WRG. The contract will further underpin our operations, will provide an additional new revenue stream and will pleasingly further cement our relationship with WRG”.
However, Mr Bullard said that the facility would not necessarily be built if WRG did not win the South West hub contract, commenting that the main focus for the facility is that contract, so if we missed out we would then need to review the situation.
While the plant is being proposed to largely treat municipal waste, it is also intended to treat around 11,000 tonnes-a-year of food waste from commercial sources.
Planning, design and engineering company Stratus Environmental Ltd, which specialises in the waste and energy sector, is expected to submit the planning application and accompanying environmental statement on behalf of WRG next month.
Mr Bullard said: We are planning to submit a full planning application for the facility in October 2011. We are going to hold some public exhibitions at the end of September/beginning of October about our plans and the feedback we receive will be fed into our planning application.
AD
Mr Bullard said that AD was now a frequent solution being offered by WRG for the treatment of source-separated food waste a technology which is currently being adopted by many waste management companies.
He said: Our parent company FCC has a lot of experience in running eight anaerobic digestion plants in Spain, but this will be our first in the UK unless another of our AD projects reaches contract close and is developed first.
A scoping report submitted to Neath Port Talbot council in July 2011 reveals that the plant will comprise of one 28 metre x 56 metre building, two 20-metre high digesters, three digestate storage tanks and three biogas engines for electricity generation. Energy produced is expected to be exported to the National Grid, while WRG hope to produce digestate which meets the the PAS110 quality standard, making it suitable to spread on agricultural land.
Under its ‘Towards Zero Waste Strategy’, the Welsh Assembly Government has set ambitious targets for 70% of municipal solid waste to be recycled or composted by 2025 and food waste collected separately and managed in AD facilities is identified as a key step to help achieve this.
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