Gloucestershire County Council signs waste contract with Andigestion

Food waste collected from Gloucestershire households will be sent to a new anaerobic digestion (AD) facility from next year, as part of a new, five-year waste contract between Andigestion Ltd and Gloucestershire County Council, it has been announced.

The plant, being built at Wingmoor Farm near Bishop’s Cleeve, will be able to process around 34,000 tonnes of food waste a year once opened in ‘spring 2015’ – including all of that collected in Gloucester, Cheltenham, the Forest of Dean and Tewkesbury districts.

As the facility will operate at high temperatures, residents living in these areas will be able to line their food caddies with plastic carrier bags as well as cornstarch bags or paper for the first time (as these could not break down at the in-vessel composting facilities where food waste was sent previously), though collection services will remain the same. 

Once delivered to the site, the food waste will be broken down to produce gas, which will be injected directly back to the gas network. The site will produce equivalent power for more than 3,000 homes.

A separate contract has been awarded to MF Bennion Ltd to continue processing mixed food and garden waste collected from the Cotswolds at its in-vessel composting site at Rosehill Farm, Dymock. The resulting biofertiliser produced is used on local farmland and is also available to purchase at the council’s household waste recycling centres.

Stroud District Council is currently the only authority within the county that does not provide food waste recycling.

A roof & 3 walls, nearly ready to take in #wastefood in to our new shed #gloucestershire #recyclingfood # pic.twitter.com/f9HYOko3FM

— Andigestion (@Andigestion) September 24, 2014

‘Protecting our environment and saving local taxpayers money’

Councillor Ray Theodoulou, Deputy Leader of Gloucestershire County Council, said: "The facilities at Wingmoor and Rosehill Farm take us a step closer to reaching our aspiration of 70 per cent recycling – one of the best recycling rates in Europe. The close working we've achieved with the district councils is helping us to realise this.

"Food waste sent to landfill gives off methane, which is 21 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide. By ensuring those inevitable scraps and peelings are not sent to landfill we can help protect our environment and save local taxpayers money."

Incinerator decision still to come

The new food waste treatment facility is part of a bigger plan to manage Gloucestershire's waste in a more environmentally-friendly and cost-effective way.

The plans include diverting residual waste from landfill, potentially through a controversial incinerator agreed by the previous Conservative administration, which have been scuppered by ongoing delays in planning permission.

Currently, it is expected that residual waste will be sent to a proposed energy-from-waste facility at Javelin Park, near Haresfield, which forms part of Urbaser Balfour Beatty’s (UBB) waste contract with the council (estimated to be worth approximately £500 million).

When first mooted, the plans for the combined heat and electricity facility outlined that up 190,000 tonnes of residual waste could be incinerated at the facility every year to produce electricity.

However, following local elections earlier in the year, the council refused planning consent for the incinerator on the grounds that, by the end of the waste contract, the technology would be antiquated and ‘inflexible’. However, when UBB appealed the council’s decision, the application was called in for inquiry by DCLG.

Despite this announcement being scheduled for release on 17 September, this has now been delayed until 30 November 2014, due to DCLG receiving new information about the proposal.

A DCLG spokesperson said: “This is a complex planning application which is being considered with due process. We have recently received post-inquiry representations, which we need to carefully consider. A decision will be made in due course.”

The planning delay has raised some concerns, after a similar delay by Pickles led Norfolk County Council to abandon its incinerator project. According to Norfolk County Council, for every day the Secretary of State delayed his decision on the future of the plant, it cost the council £140,000. In total, the council had to pay around £30 million to project developers Cory Wheelabrator for breaking the contract.

Gloucestershire County Council has said that it is ‘disappointed’ with the delay, but added that if permission is approved, the facility could help divert 92 per cent of residual waste from landfill.

However, it has been considering alternative residual waste plans for the past year.

Find out more about Andigestion and the Javelin Park facilities.