Monday 30th March 2009
Powerday offers solution to spiralling landfill tax
For local authorities and businesses facing potentially massive landfill bills when tax hits £40 next week, Powerday offers an environmentally and financially viable alternative to burying waste.
Landfill tax will climb by £8 to £40 per tonne on April 1 and organisations in London are set to come under even more pressure to find greener ways of managing waste.
Powerday, the South East’s most advanced materials recovery facility, has the capacity to recycle nearly 10 per cent of the capital’s waste and is on target to achieve up to 100 per cent resource recovery this year.
The family-run business, based at Willesden Junction in North London, is currently working with Veolia Environmental Services to recycle household waste from high rise flats in Tower Hamlets, a borough that has struggled in the past to deliver high rates of recycling.1
Through segregation of co-mingled black bag waste collected from the residents, Powerday has been able to recover significant volumes of metals, paper and plastics.
Commenting on this achievement, Jamie Blake, Service Head of Public Realm, Tower Hamlets council said “The landfill tax increase is a further fiscal driver for London to expand its recycling capabilities. At Tower Hamlets Council, we see this as an opportunity to develop our innovative recycling solutions with Powerday through Veolia as illustrated by our high rise flat recycling scheme. Powerday's MRF offers a feasible alternative to landfill in terms of capturing material value and providing sustainable resource management.”
Mick Crossan, managing director of Powerday, said:
“This issue can no longer be sidelined - tax will continue to rise and landfill space is set to run out in the not too distant future.
Local authorities and businesses need to take collective action to divert waste from landfill so they don’t have to bear the brunt of these costs or contribute to the gases that are said to add to climate change.”
Nearly 21 million tonnes of waste is produced in the capital every year, and of that nearly 35 per cent is sent to ever-shrinking landfill sites – the rest is recycled and incinerated.2 Just 26 per cent of households in London recycle their waste, a rate that lags behind that of most other British regions.3
The Government hopes the rise in landfill costs, which are set to climb even further next year to £48, will encourage more environmentally friendly waste management methods that recover the huge economic value from rubbish through recycling and composting.4
Powerday’s nine-acre plant can handle 1.6million tonnes of waste each year, and considerable investment has already been made with further technology being commissioned this month that can identify different plastics, cardboards and non-ferrous metal. This state-of-the-art technology will push recovery rates up to 100 per cent.
Almost all recovered material that leaves the facility remains in the UK, and its passage from raw material to end product is tracked so customers know where their waste is taken and how much is recycled.
With its location on the intersection of road, rail and canal networks, Powerday is one of the most flexible facilities in the country. The site also harnesses rainwater in underground tanks and in future Powerday plans to recover fuel from waste, creating its own electricity and selling the surplus back to the National Grid.
For those curious about what happens to recyclables after they are collected, Powerday has just launched a new video which takes visitors through the plant’s processes.
