With three companies vying for Leicester county’s £86.6 million council waste contract effective from 2015 to 2040, the debate on what to do with the county’s rubbish has heated up.
Waste firm Biffa, one of the bidding parties, wants to burn it. Biffa proposes building a CHP (combined heat and power) incinerator to be located in Shepshed. The incinerator will take the expected 180,000 tonnes of public rubbish, add it to the 120,000 tonnes of commercial waste and convert it, says Biffa, into enough electricity to run 42,000 homes.
David Savory of Biffa asserts that this is a proven and safe technology, and the best way to deal with Leicester’s growing mountains of rubbish. He says the proposed plant is covered by strict European regulations regarding emissions and air quality.
“Our combustion process and emissions will be significantly better than the regulations dictate,” Savory says.
Opposition to the Biffa plan has come from several quarters, including green organizations, politicians and people living in the vicinity of the proposed site for the plant.
Research scientist Eric Goodyer also opposes the CHP plant. Goodyer is Charnwood’s parliamentary Labour candidate and works for the faculty of technology at De Montfort University as a chartered engineer. As councillor for Lewisham a quarter of a century ago, he was a front runner in the movement that ushered in UK’s first CHP.
While he believes this was the best alternative for the time, Goodyer thinks there are now better ways of dealing with waste. “Technology moves on and Leicestershire County Council needs to be a bit more visionary,” he says.
He cites examples of the ball mill and the anaerobic digester operated by Biffa at Wanlip, and says both offer a potentially better integrated solution than CHP.
Goodyer adds that autoclaving waste rather than burning it would mean 90% of household waste is disposed of safely, generating renewable electricity and recovering recyclables, compose and clean water. “The first step is to reduce packaging,” he declares. “The second is to make sure everybody is recycling as they should.”
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