Waste management company AmeyCespa has signed an 18-year contract to design, build and operate a waste treatment facility in the Old Wolverton industrial area of Milton Keynes.
The Waste Recovery Park, to be built on the site of a former distribution centre, will deal with household residual waste (currently sent to landfill), in addition to some commercial waste from local offices, shops and restaurants.
The contract only affects the processing of residual waste and not collections, which are currently managed be Serco.
Bid Details
The facility will bring together three different technologies to treat any waste which has not been reused, recycled or composted: mechanical treatment technology will extract recyclable materials from black bag waste, which can be reprocessed into new products; an anaerobic digestor will treat food or organic waste, creating renewable energy and compost; and an advanced thermal treatment facility will utilise gasification technology to generate electricity from remaining unrecyclable waste. According to AmeyCespa, these technologies will create enough renewable electricity to power the equivalent of 11,000 homes.
AmeyCespa has said that by using the park instead of sending waste to landfill, the council could save ‘more than £50 million over the design life of the facility’, and reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill to two per cent.
It added that the park will create 200 during construction and 45 once operational, increase recycling levels (currently at around 50 per cent) and include an on-site visitor and education centre for use by schools and the wider community.
AmeyCespa was named as the preferred bidder following a detailed tender process at the end of October 2012.
“A new chapter”
Councillor David Hopkins, Milton Keynes Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment and Waste, said: “As Milton Keynes continues to grow, so does the amount of waste we produce. Combining our ideas with AmeyCespa’s wealth of experience, we have worked closely together to come up with an excellent long-term, value-for-money solution and are delighted to now sign the contract, marking the beginning of a new chapter in Milton Keynes’ history of innovative waste management.”
AmeyCespa’s Project Director, Bill Jarvis, added: “We are delighted to have reached this stage of the project and are looking forward to continuing to work closely with the Council and local community to provide a state-of-the-art solution to Milton Keynes’ waste.
“Milton Keynes Waste Recovery Park will use an innovative combination of proven technologies to make the most of the borough’s waste, increasing recycling and helping the council to save on its waste management bill.”
The planning application for the facility was submitted in April, alongside an environmental permit, to the Environment Agency. If approved, the new facility will become operational in 2016.
The recovery park is the second such facility to be built by AmeyCespa, after it gained planning permission to build a similar waste recovery park at Allerton Quary in North Yorkshire.
Read more about the Milton Keynes Waste Recovery Park.
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