Artist's impression of the Biffa EfW facility

Leeds City Council has approved plans for construction of two separate energy-from-waste incinerators to be built in the city.

Last week (7 February), permission was granted to Veolia Environmental Services to build a 214,000 tonne incinerator to process household waste at Cross Green industrial estate as part of its 25-year waste contract with the council.

Waste management company Biffa, was also granted planning permission to build a 300,000 tonne incinerator for commercial and industrial waste at the old Skelton Grange power station site in Stourton.

The Veolia plant will be used to process ‘black bin’ household waste and will remove any recyclable material before burning the residual waste to generate 11.6MW of electricity for the national grid – enough to power up to 20,000 homes.

The Biffa plant will also extract recyclable material from commercial and industrial waste before incinerating the remainder to produce 25.8 megawatts of electricity – enough to power around 51,600 homes.

‘Major step forward’

Robert Hunt, Veolia’s Environmental Services’ Executive Director, welcomed Leeds City Council’s planning decision, saying: “This is a major step forward in delivering a long term waste management solution for Leeds. We firmly believe that the proposed facility at Cross Green offers the right location and the right technology for the city.”

He continued: “Our primary aim is to minimise the amount of waste sent to landfill – a response to both cost and environmental pressures. The construction and operation of a single well-located facility offers the best financial and environmental solution for the local authority and the local taxpayer.

Councillor Mark Dobson, Leeds City Council’s Executive Member for the Environment, added: “This decision has been years in the making and the level of scrutiny provided by panel members demonstrates just how important the incinerator is to the city.

“I’ve said frequently that we can’t afford to continue to bury waste in the ground on financial or environmental grounds. Alongside other improvements to our waste services, this is a significant milestone in enabling us to recycle as much as we can.

“With the final discussions set to get underway, we’re confident the end result will be a facility that will allow us to realise our ambitions for a cleaner, greener Leeds.”

The construction of the Veolia plant is expected to provide 300 temporary construction posts in addition to 45 technical and non-technical permanent positions, while Biffa’s plant is forecast to create 300 construction jobs and 40 permanent roles.

Jeff Rhodes, Company Planning and Permitting Manager at Biffa, said: “We are pleased that the strength of the scheme and the site have been recognised and will now look ahead to plan the next steps.”

Artist's impression of Veolia's EfW facility

Opposition

The council’s reliance on incineration has concerned local residents, withthe planning application for Veolia’s plant prompting more than 300 objections from campaign groups and members of the public.

Speaking to Resource, Friends of the Earth Campaigner for Yorkshire and Humber, Simon Bowens, said: ‘We’ve been engaged in a campaign particularly against the municipal waste incinerator - the Veolia project in Cross Green. We’re concerned that the local authority is losing the opportunity to increase the sustainability of its waste management.

“We view incinerators and waste plants as being a really backward technology in terms of managing residual waste, and there are far better ways of doing it. The project will lock the city into a contract for 25 years, while the [recycling] technology will move forward even more in that time.”

He added that by approving the plans, the city council have “failed to listen to the concerns of local residents in one of the most deprived areas of our city”.

There are also concerns with incineration overcapacity, due to the Leeds incinerator’s proximity to the Sheffield facility, which has already had to resubmit its planning permission to increase its catchment area to obtain enough waste to burn.

Over-investment in incineration has been a prominent concern with environmentalists and business alike, after a report published by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives in January, found that the United Kingdom has more incinerator capacity than waste available to burn, stalling waste prevention and recycling efforts and causing ‘unnecessary CO2 emissions’.