A consortium of five South Wales councils, which includes Caerphilly County Borough Council, has agreed a contract with waste company Viridor to operate an incinerator near Cardiff.
Prosiect Gwyrdd, it has been claimed, will save the partner authorities £11 million in the first year of operation and £500m over the lifetime of the contract compared to current arrangements. During the commissioning stage of the contract, the partner councils, which include Cardiff, Monmouthshire Newport and the Vale of Glamorgan, will start sending waste from September 2015 with the full service starting on April 1 2016.
The contract will deliver at least a further 5% recycling by extracting any remaining metal and using the incinerator bottom ash (IBA) as aggregate for building materials.
The facility is currently being built at Trident Park in Cardiff and is an investment by Viridor of more than £223m.
The contract also includes a community fund of £50,000 per year for local projects in the five local authority areas.
Prosiect Gwyrdd will deliver an average of 172,000 tonnes of waste per year and the capacity of the plant is 350,000 tonnes. The facility will generate 28 MW of power by producing electricity, which is the equivalent electricity needs for 50,000 homes.
Cllr Russell Goodway, Chairman of the Joint Committee, said: “The partner councils have worked together closely to ensure that in the times of austerity all five councils will make significant savings from this project. To that extent, it is an excellent example of how local councils can work in collaboration to deliver much needed infrastructure whilst achieving financial savings. By working together the five Councils have secured funding from the Welsh Government and a more favourable price for each tonne of waste treated at the facility. A legal agreement is now in place to ensure that each council fulfils their contractual obligations.”
Howard Ellard, Viridor Business Development Director, said: “After a three-year tendering process, we are delighted to have signed this contract and look forward to providing this essential service to the project partners and their residents.”
Good news, jobs and money savings for the councils involved. We are way behind countries such as Germany in waste incineration.