Councils celebrate 'beacon' PFI landmark
Published: 07/08/2009
Category: Industry
Source: LAWR Magazine Phil Mellows
Three councils have joined forces to create a waste project that aims to recover value from 53% of municipal waste by 2010. Phil Mellows attended the opening
Next time the cry of "rubbish" echoes from Reading FC's Madejski
Stadium ears will be pricking up a few hundred yards away at the
Smallmead Waste Management Park. They love their rubbish at Smallmead,
a point VIP guests at the official opening last month were left in no
doubt as they dived into the picking line and got their hands - or
rather their gloves - dirty.
For the councillors of Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham it
was a moment for celebration. Ten years on from when the project was
conceived they had proved that three local authorities could come
together in a scheme to create a waste management operation that has
the potential to meet, and exceed, challenging government and EU
targets.
Paul Bettison, leader of Bracknell Forest Borough Council and chair
of the Local Government Association's environment board, described the
project as "a beacon for other councils". He added: "They have plans
like this, but ours have come to fruition. This is a landmark. A most
memorable of days."
Work properly began in 2006 when the three councils, coming
together under the umbrella organisation Re3, chose Waste Recycling
Group (WRG) as their private sector partner in a 25-year PFI deal worth
£610M. As well as Smallmead, the project includes a second waste
management park at Longshot Lane in Bracknell, which officially opened
a week later. Total cost of building the two new facilities was £28.4M.
Smoothly does it
Re3 project manager Oliver Burt is
almost apologetic about how smoothly things have gone. "PFI schemes are
always a big risk for local authorities," he says. "There's always that
question hanging over them - is it going to happen? But, and it's
boring I know, this has generally gone according to plan and the risk
is reducing by the day as the facility gets into its stride.
"The partnership has worked so well because each council shares the
same goals. There was such a clear need politics never came into it.
And WRG has done what it said it would do. It's been a remarkable
experience."
Smallmead park, built on the old council landfill site, holds a
household waste recycling centre, a waste transfer station, a MRF, a
visitor education centre and offices. The waste transfer station,
opened in April 2008, is designed to handle 200,000tpa of trade and
kerbside waste from the three boroughs.
Inside the MRF
The MRF is designed to sort and bale up to
75,000tpa of co-mingled dry recyclables, separating them into five
streams - aluminium cans, cardboard, paper, plastic bottles and steel
cans. The process is automated using air knives, eddy currents magnets
and a TiTech PolySort unit for the plastics. Contaminants are then
hand-picked. The average recovery rate from waste across the Re3
partnership area in 2008-9 was nearly 40%.
The household waste recycling centre, which also opened last year,
is used by up to 6,000 residents a week who drive up a pleasant
entrance road into a light and airy roofed area with clearly
colour-coded bays and banks for different kinds of waste. In a survey
last October, the facility scored an approval rating of 99%, suggesting
Re3 has achieved its ambitious goal of making recycling a pleasurable
experience. "The public couldn't believe it could be this good," as
Cllr Bettison puts it.
According to the PFI contract, the scheme will recover value from
53% of municipal waste by 2010. The recycling rate target for the end
of the contract, in 2021, is 50%, recovering value from 74% of waste
collected by the three authorities. And Smallmead also has an
educational role. More than 2,000 schoolchildren a year are expected to
use the visitor centre to learn about reducing waste and recycling -
and see for themselves that their efforts really make a difference.
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