Tamar's Basingstoke AD plant

Tamar Organics, a subsidiary of Tamar Energy (Tamar), has signed a £1.7 million contract with Essex County Council (ECC), its first with a local authority.

Under the contract, around 54,000 tonnes of food and garden waste collected from 13 Essex authorities will be sent for processing at three of Tamar’s composting sites.

These are:

• An open windrow composting facility in Ongar, Essex, which will receive 16,000 tonnes of clean green waste;
• An in-vessel composting facility in Tempsford, Bedfordshire, which will receive 17,000 tonnes of mixed food and green waste; and
  An in-vessel composting facility in Parham, Suffolk, which will receive 10,000 tonnes of mixed food and green waste.

The organic waste will be broken down to produce biogas and a biofertiliser.

Further to this, ECC will also send around 4,000 tonnes of food waste collected from householders to Tamar’s Basingstoke anaerobic digestion (AD) plant while construction is completed at its new plant in Halstead, Essex. An estimated 7,000 tonnes of food waste will be processed at the Halstead plant once it is up and running (estimated to be ‘by the second half of 2014’).

The contracts form part of a suite of framework agreements that will allow ECC to treat all its biowaste, including food, until the ‘Essex long-term food waste treatment solution’ (currently in procurement) is in place. The framework agreements also provide for the treatment of green garden waste until 2017.

Speaking of the contract, Mat Stewart, Tamar Energy’s Head of Feedstock and Managing Director of its composting business, Tamar Organics, said: “This contract represents our first partnership with a local authority in England and it’s great to be working with Essex County Council. This once again demonstrates that AD is a genuine waste management option for local authorities that can provide tangible financial and environmental benefits.”

Councillor Roger Walters, Cabinet Member for Waste & Recycling at ECC, added: “We are pleased to be working with Tamar Energy to ensure we keep our waste disposal costs in line with last year during a difficult economic climate of rising prices. This contract enables Essex County Council to continue its successful waste management programme, and we look forward to working with Tamar Energy.”

The contract marks the first partnership Tamar has had with a local authority following the acquisition of a number of in-vessel and open windrow composting sites from Countrystyle Group in 2012.

The acquisition forms part of Tamar’s ambition to create the ‘first UK-wide network of AD plants’ by 2018. It is expected that these could generate around 100 megawatts (MW) of electricity and gas from digesting organic waste, enough to power more than 200,000 homes.

Read more about Tamar Energy.