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Leading international waste management business Shanks Group plc has announced that it has signed a 25 year PFI contract with Wakefield Council worth an estimated £750 million.
Under the contract, Shanks will build a residual waste treatment facility at South Kirkby, which will employ a number of processes to treat and recycle waste from the Wakefield District transforming it into valuable products and green energy. The facility will process up to 230,000 tonnes per annum of municipal solid waste, helping to increase the local authority's landfill diversion rate towards 90%.
The contract has been funded by the UK Green Investment Bank and a group of leading international banks; Barclays, BayernLB from Germany and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation from Japan.
The incoming municipal solid waste will be treated at the Facility in South Kirkby. A variety of materials will be segregated for recycling and the Facility will produce a refuse derived fuel, for processing at a multi-fuel plant being built at the Ferrybridge Power Station for energy recovery. A separate onsite materials recycling facility will separate out the clean mixed recyclate material derived from the Wakefield District’s households to be used by specialist markets.
The remaining organic waste will be treated using a state-of-the-art autoclave, which has already been built and undergone rigorous testing. This process will sterilise the remaining material before it is fed into a 65,000 tonnes per annum anaerobic digestion (‘AD’) plant, where it will be converted into biogas for renewable energy generation. This will both power the plant and export energy back to the grid; it is estimated that the process will generate sufficient green energy to power approximately 3,000 homes. The residue from the AD process will be used as a nutrient-rich soil conditioner.
Green waste will be processed via an enclosed air controlled composting plant. The final compost material will be used for improving land remediation schemes across the Wakefield District and wider market and a proportion made available for use by the Wakefield District's residents.
(CD/GK)
