Environment and roads

Finding alternatives to landfill

The Hertfordshire Waste Partnership (a partnership between the county council and 10 district councils) has developed a Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy that sets out policies for how we will deal with the county’s household waste.

At the heart of the Strategy is the principle Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The first priority is to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place, then either reuse materials, recycle or compost them.

Hertfordshire residents are already working hard, recycling and composting 36% of household waste. We are aiming to increase this to at least 50% by 2012. We will do this by trying to increasing the use of existing services and introducing new schemes to make recycling and composting easier. We are also aiming to construct new facilities to allow all authorities to compost kitchen waste and cardboard.

A key part in achieving these aims will be through ongoing education and awareness-raising through the WasteAware campaign.

However effective we are in reducing, reusing and recycling waste, there will always be some material left to dispose of. One of the county council’s priorities in the Strategy is to move away from a reliance on landfill and to explore different technologies.

Responding to the challenge

As Waste Disposal Authority we commissioned consultants to produce a feasibility study looking at various options for dealing with Hertfordshire’s household waste.

The study, carried out by independent consultants, looked at current levels of waste in the county and how much waste there is likely to be in the future. The study also looked at various different waste processing technologies and potential sites listed in the Waste Development Framework.

A long list of waste processing technologies, including Landfill, was assessed against a range of environmental, social, technical and economic factors. The result is a short list of three preferred technologies - Energy from Waste (EfW), Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) and Advanced Thermal Treatment (ATT) plus Landfill that will be required for the small amount of left-over waste that cannot be recycled or re-used following treatment. Further work needs to be done to assess whether the best option is one of these or a mixture of technologies.

• Energy from waste (EfW), with or without combined heat and power. Energy can be extracted from the controlled burning at very high temperatures of waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill.
• Mechanical biological treatment (MBT) is a combination of processes that generally involves mechanical sorting to separate materials for recycling and the treatment of the left-over waste to reduce the amount of waste that needs to be disposed of.
• Advanced thermal treatment (ATT) uses pyrolysis, plasma or gasification processes to recover energy from waste at medium or high temperatures. electricity.

Further work needs to be done to assess the suitability of sites that could meet long-term needs.

The results of the study were reported to the Waste Management Panel on March 4, 2008. The Panel agreed that further work should be done to consider the technologies and potential sites in more detail, including discussing planning issues with district/borough councils and exploring opportunities to work with other waste authorities in neighbouring counties.

The council is also looking at a possible government grant to fund new facilities - a Private Finance Initiative (PFI). This means lodging an Expression of Interest with Defra for PFI credits of up to £100m by the end of March and drawing up a more detailed plan (Outline Business Case) by the end of October.

Timetable

This is the start of a lengthy process which is likely to take a number of years, involving detailed assessments, public consultation, planning processes and tendering for the construction. Alongside this is the process to secure funding for the project.

A rough indication of timescales

Timing	Project milestone
4 March 2008	Waste Management Panel
31 March 2008	Submission of Expression of Interest to Defra for PFI credits
April-Oct	Preparation of Outline Business case for PFI credits
9 July 2008	Waste Management Panel
7 October 2008	Waste Management Panel
20 October 2008	Cabinet
End October 2008	Submission of Outline Business Case to Defra
2009-2012	Procurement of facilities
2012-2014	Construction
2015 onwards	Plant operational

How can people get involved?

At this stage the county council is exploring various options and no decisions have been made. The county council is committed to working closely with partners and the local community to find the best solution for Hertfordshire. We will keep people informed about the process and will update this website to let people know how they can get involved.