Passing Planning Perils in Greater Manchester

Viridor's Runcorn waste to energy facility at the Ineos Chlor chemical site is part of Europe's largest ever waste procurement project

It was in 2009 when a historical, landmark agreement was reached in the international waste management industry. In a bid to help divert 75% of its waste from landfill the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA) signed a 'Recycling and Waste Management Contract' with Viridor Laing (Greater Manchester) Limited. So far under this contract almost 30 waste facilities including recycling centres, Material Recovery Facilities (MRF), Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plants, transfer stations, composting facilities and thermal recovery Waste to Energy (WtE) facilities have been either built or refurbished. Around 12 more are either planned or under construction.

The purpose of such large scale investment was to create an integrated collection and disposal system, whereby as much waste as possible is treated as high up the waste hierarchy as possible.

The authority operates a commingled recycling collection, whereby residents are required to separate plastic bottles, cans, glass, food waste, green waste, paper and card for processing at a new MRF facility.

Recyclates are separated into their component streams using technology which recognises the constituent parts. The resulting products are sold separately on the market, generating revenue which helps to offset investment costs. Commingled food and green wastes are treated at four in-vessel composting facilities, resulting is a high quality compost for use in horticulture, agriculture and land reclamation.

Remaining residual waste is to undergo two stages of treatment and energy recovery. The first stage treatment will be undertaken at five key mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facilities - four with anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities strategically located around the region. The second stage treatment will be undertaken at a regional CHP facility located in Runcorn near Widnes. In addition an existing WtE facility in Bolton will continue to be used, and will be upgraded and maintained during the life of the contract.

Each MBT-AD plant has the capacity to handle over 100,000 tonnes of residual waste per annum. The plants have mechanical treatment equipment to remove any recyclates such as metal and aggregates present in the residual waste stream. These materials are sold to market. The process also generates two other waste streams - an organic-rich fraction which is suitable for the AD process and a largely non-organic waste stream with a high Calorific Value (CV) that it to be transported to the CHP facility in Runcorn. The AD process involves a number of distinct stages. In the first instance the organic-rich materials are treated and turned into slurry. Grits are removed and sold as aggregate, and any residual light fraction materials are also removed. These light fraction materials are incorporated back in to the non-organic waste stream.

Slurry materials are pumped into tanks where they are treated in a tightly controlled anaerobic environment to release biogas. Biogas is then harnessed to generate renewable electricity and this electricity is fed into the national grid. In total around 8 MW of electricity will be generated. The process also generates excess heat which is fed back into the plants and used in the process. Materials emerging from the AD plants are dried using centrifuges and heat driers.

These dried materials also have a significant CV (although lower than the non-organic waste stream) and are transported to Runcorn where the higher and lower CV wastes are to be blended to produce a RDF with a consistent CV.

Runcorn

The CHP facility at Runcorn is being developed in two phases next to a major chemical plant owned and operated by Ineos Chlor. The chemical plant is the UK's largest single user of electricity and will now be able to enhance its sustainability credentials using renewable fuel derived from the household waste. Heat generated from the CHP facility will also be used. It will be one of the few truly "CHP" delivered waste treatment schemes in the UK.

Phase one of the facility is being developed by a joint venture of Ineos, Viridor and John Laing. It will act as the final destination for 275,000 tonnes a year of RDF delivered under the GMWDA household waste contract. Phase two is being developed by Viridor and Ineos and will accept waste from other commercial contracts.

The facility is being built by Keppel Seghers, which was awarded an Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract for phase one of the project in 2009 and phase two in 2010. Each phase of the project will feature two lines, each with Keppel Seghers' Water-Cooled Grates, the horizontal boiler design integrated with its Prism technology for enhanced heat recovery and its double dry flue gas cleaning system. Combined the two phases will have a total capacity of 750,000 tonnes per year and at full capacity generate 70 MW of electricity and 51 MW of heat exported as steam.

RDF is to be transported from the MBT-AD facilities to the Runcorn site by rail, with imported wastes deposited in a front end bunker where they can be mixed and blended to produce a fuel with a consistent CV.

The Runcorn site recently received an Environmental Permit from the Environment agency, with phase one due for completion in 2013 and phase two scheduled to come online by 2014/2015. Once complete the facility will be able to supply around 20% of Ineos Chlor's power requirements.

Planning and mitigation

Planning is a potential banana skin for any waste project in the UK, and for projects at this scale especially, it is the key to success. To help secure permissions for so many facilities, planning application works and associated environmental impact assessments were carried out by independent engineering consultancy Wardell Armstrong LLP.

A total of 23 planning permissions were secured over a two year period, with 22 in place prior to the financial close in April 2009. Seventeen approvals were granted within nine months of the selection of the preferred bidder, and the vast majority of the applications were approved within six months of submission. None were refused or went to appeal. The consented facilities are now under construction and commissioning.

Throughout the planning process VLGM and GMWDA undertook a wide range of public consultations on each of the proposals to ensure householders and the local media were aware of the facilities being developed in their local area. Over 30,000 people were provided with information on how the facilities would work and benefit Greater Manchester overall. However, as was to be expected, a variety of issues and concerns were encountered across the different facilities, and a range of mitigation measures were called for to reduce environmental impacts and address the concerns of local residents.

For example, at the South Manchester resource recovery centre in Longley Lane, for example (a combined HWRC, MRF and MBT-AD facility) there was potential for compounded air quality impact from the plant and nearby motorway. Mitigation measures included detailed air quality modelling, appropriately designed stacks and a route management strategy.

In addition to securing the 23 planning permissions needed for the new waste management facilities in a short space of time, some of which were the largest and most complex in the UK, twenty five permitting applications were also secured in parallel.

This was achieved largely through establishing a close and cooperative working relationship with the local authorities and the Environment Agency from the start of the process in order to resolve any issues as they arose.

It even accommodated a major legislation change halfway through, when waste management licences and PPC permits became environmental permits and some already granted had to be converted. Rigorous assessments in critical areas such as air dispersion modelling, noise monitoring, noise calculation and ecology also played a critical part.

Conclusions

Planning success on this scale was previously unheard of in the UK waste industry. The achievement demonstrates that planning permission for even the most complex and innovative facilities can be achieved expediently through close liaison with the client and the planning authorities, focused site selection and design, rigorous impact assessment, effective stakeholder consultation, strong lines of communication and robust applications. It also shows the leading role that WtE can play in imaginative waste management strategies of the future.

Greater Manchester is about to see a major sea shift in the way it deals with its waste, with recyclate recovery, energy recovery and sustainability at its core.

Europe's largest ever waste contract

With the aim of reducing waste sent to landfill by 75%, and increasing its recycling and compost rate to 50% the GMWDA set out in 2003 to make a significant move up the waste hierarchy. Serving a population of over 2.27 million people across nine local authorities, producing around 1.1 million tonnes of municipal waste each year, the authority drew up plans for a range of new facilities, including five Waste to Energy (WtE) plants to help it meet its targets.

As part of its plans the authority had several key aims: to reduce the amount of waste produced, to reduce the amount going to landfill, and to create more value from waste via recycling, material recovery, treatment and the generation of renewable energy and to lead the way in intelligent waste resource management.

In April 2009 the GMWDA signed a 25 year recycling and waste contract with Viridor Laing (Greater Manchester) Limited (VLGM) - a partnership between waste management firm Viridor and public sector infrastructure specialist, John Laing plc. The £3.8 billion contract is Europe's largest ever waste deal and includes a £631 million construction programme create an integrated network of waste facilities serving around a million households in Greater Manchester which includes Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford.

As part of the deal a 'clean' MRF at Longley Lane in Manchester will be built to sort kerbside collected recyclable material and five MBT facilities - four with AD plants. Approximately 275,000 tonnes of RDF from the MBT process is to be delivered to a CHP thermal treatment facility in Runcorn.

The contract involves accepting and treating separate household collections of commingled plastic bottles, cans and glass, commingled food and green waste, mixed paper and card and residual waste.

The starting point was twenty six existing HWRCs, five transfer loading stations, five dated pulverisation plants and a thermal recovery facility at Bolton. The facilities afforded a degree of treatment of wastes but were in need of replacement to meet stringent new targets for recovery of recyclables and reduction of waste sent to landfill. The Bolton thermal recovery facility was designed to handle waste arising from only one of the nine waste collection authorities in Greater Manchester.

The overall strategy was to recover as much recyclable material as possible, to recover products and to refine the remaining residual waste to generate a high quality fuel.