An initiative from BDR (Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham councils) and 3SE (a consortium of Shanks, an international waste-to-product business and energy company SSE) has won the Best Energy from Waste Initiative award at the MRW National Recycling Awards.
The initiative is revolutionising the treatment of household waste. Waste and energy experts from Walker Morris continue to support the councils with a broad range of legal advice on the waste project which reached financial close in 2012.
The facility processes around 250,000 tonnes of waste a year from 340,000 homes across Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham, Since it opened in July 2015, more than 96 per cent of waste has been successfully diverted from landfill.
It is one of the first in the UK to combine Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) and dry anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities on the same site. Once at the facility, any remaining recyclable materials are extracted from the waste, before the rest is turned into a fuel which is used at the Ferrybridge Multifuel 1 facility in West Yorkshire. There the fuel releases its energy to produce low carbon electricity which is supplied to the National Grid.