A new energy-from-waste (EfW) facility is in the works for Teesside, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK has announced.
The area is well-served for EfW facilites, with SUEZ already operating five process lines in Teesside dealing with waste from Stockton, Middlesborough, Redcar and Cleveland, Northumberland and the South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Partnership. In addition, a further EfW plant to be operated by PMAC Energy was announced in July this year on the site of the SSI steelworks in Redcar, which closed in 2015.
The new SUEZ facility will be located in Haverton Hill, near Billingham, alongside two pre-existing SUEZ sites. Planning permission was granted in 2014 and the company estimates that the facility will be operational by 2022, with the capacity to treat 200,000 tonnes of residual waste every year.
David Palmer-Jones, SUEZ UK’s Chief Executive Officer, set the announcement in the context of the company’s 2017 report, ‘Mind the Gap 2017-2030’, which found the UK to be facing a capacity gap, producing more waste than can be treated without investment in more infrastructure.
Palmer-Jones stated: “For several years now, we have been keeping a close eye on residual waste treatment capacity at a national and regional level through our Mind the Gap analysis reports, which show that the UK has a shortfall in vital non-landfill waste treatment capacity.
“Brexit, and the questions it raises around the future of residual waste exports, only strengthens the case for additional domestic treatment capacity. We are therefore very pleased that the SUEZ group continues to see the potential of the UK market and has chosen to invest in this new facility to serve public sector and commercial customers in the North East and Scotland.”
The new facility will join SUEZ’s portfolio of seven EfW plants in Kirklees, Suffolk, Cornwall, Severnside and the Isle of Man as well as those in Teesside and Redcar.
A number of the UK’s biggest waste management companies have concurred with SUEZ on the issue of the supposed capacity gap; in another 2017 report, Biffa predicted that the UK’s EfW capacity is likely to drop to around six million tonnes by 2025. Both SUEZ and Biffa have linked their predictions to Brexit, focusing on the changes to export markets for refuse derived fuels.
However, these reports are in stark contrast to research conducted by environmental consultancy firm Eunomia, which has predicted a residual waste overcapacity by 2020/21, suggesting that incineration could outstrip recycling if measures are not taken to address the issue.
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