Waste plant firm tries to allay fears over £77m treatment site

The project has been in the pipeline for more than a decade since councils in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham signed up to the so-called BDR waste partnership in a bid to solve their landfill problems.

Under EU rules designed to encourage recycling and protect the environment, local authorities are fined for dumping household waste in landfill, with the financial penalties growing each year, leaving waste bosses with a major headache.

Earlier this year a firm called 3SE, a partnership between the Milton Keynes-based waste processor Shanks Group and Scottish and Southern Energy, was named as the preferred partner by the three councils.

The company will now move onto a site which has been earmarked for the treatment of waste at Bolton Road, between Bolton-upon-Dearne and Manvers, near Rotherham, and apply for planning permission.

Yesterday 3SE said it would not build an incinerator, as feared by some protest groups, but instead planned two units, a mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plant and an anaerobic digestion facility.

Shanks spokesman Stephen Ray said: “Once operational, this facility will enable us to deal with the councils’ waste while creating energy and reusing materials that would otherwise go to landfill.

“Burying waste in holes in the ground is no longer sustainable, as it produces methane which is 21 times more harmful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

“There are also increasing financial penalties for councils which fail to meet tough new targets for reducing landfill and these costs would have to be borne by council tax payers.”

All the rubbish that is treated at the Manvers site will be so-called residual waste, which is refuse placed in bins as non-recyclable by households.

However, 3SE said the mechanical biological process would separate any plastic, glass, metal and other resuable materials found in the rubbish before the MBT process begins.

Rubbish will then placed in the MBT building where waste will be sucked in to be used in the drying and treatment process before bales of the end product are produced.

That product will be taken to Scottish and Southern Energy-owned Ferrybridge power station, near Pontefract, where it will be burned to generate electricity in a soon-to-be built “multi-fuel” plant.

3SE said “residues” from the MBT process would be placed in the anaerobic digesting process, which would produce a soil nutrient and biogas, which will be piped off and used elsewhere.

Three consultation events are planned for people who live nearby on July 15, 16 and 23, where the project team will answer questions. Details of the sessions are available on the internet at www.brdonline.co.uk

Coun Richard Russell, of Rotherham Council, who is the chairman of the BDR partnership said: “We hope as many people as possible attend one of the local information sessions.

“They provide an important opportunity for people to find out more about what is proposed, and talk to and ask questions of some of the people involved.

“We are keenly aware of the need to make sure local people’s views are heard.

“These will then be fed into the planning process as part of the statutory consultation which will help to guide robust and thoroughly informed decision making.”

The BDR scheme has been funded with £77m of private finance initiative money from central Government, with further costs being funded by the three councils.