A new way for waste
Cardiff approves planning for a novel waste recycling and renewable energy facility – the second in the world.
UK company Sterecycle has been granted planning approval for a waste treatment site in Wentloog, Cardiff that harnesses renewable energy from domestic waste as well as filtering out recyclable materials from household waste.
Cardiff’s planning committee unanimously approved the application in November 2009, giving the green light to only the second such facility in the world.
The facility will handle a capacity of up to 200,000 tonnes of black bag waste per year. “That is equivalent to the residual waste for the whole of Cardiff, Newport, the Vale of Glamorgan and Caerphilly. It’s a big chunk of much needed treatment capacity for the region,” says Sterecycle’s Development Director Alistair Shotliff.
The plant will treat waste with heat and pressure and enable it to be sorted into recoverable streams.
Sterecycle estimates that up to 55% of the waste is biodegradable matter that can be recovered and treated to generate renewable electricity. Residual heat is also recovered and used in the process and could be made commercially available to nearby businesses.
“We basically have a biomass-powered combined heat and power plant,” says Alistair.
Of the remaining waste, some 25-30% is then recycled, including materials such as plastics, aluminium and ferrous metals, aggregate and wood.
Sterecycle chose the Cardiff site because the local area has very little waste treatment capacity, and diminishing landfill. The company also sees opportunities for further treatment plants in North and South Wales.
The technology has been around for several years and has been proven at a plant in Rotherham, but Sterecycle believes that changing legislation and increasing landfill cost is now making it a viable and attractive proposition.
“The biodegradable fraction of waste is what the EU and local authorities are looking to divert from landfill, because it causes greenhouse gases and waste is subject to rising landfill tax.
“What we’re doing is recovering as much of the waste and particularly the plastics for recycling and only recovering energy from the renewable fraction of the waste. This is quite attractive when compared to traditional routes such as mass-burn plants that incinerate all waste without sorting.”
