RECAP News
23/12/2008 - Plans submitted for new Materials Recycling Facility at Peterborough
Plans have been submitted for a new materials recycling facility that will help Peterborough achieve one of the country's highest targets for recycling discarded household materials.
The proposal for the former Ray Smith Group factory at Fengate in the city's Eastern industrial area to house a 100,000-tonne capacity materials recycling facility (MRF) is an integral element in Peterborough City Council's future waste management strategy.
The plans propose that the 62,000 sq ft factory building is extended at the rear to provide a ‘tipping hall' where city council recycling freighters will unload. The factory is large enough to provide under-cover storage for separated materials while they await despatch to re-processors.
One-way traffic control will improve site access, with lorries entering the 7.42 acre site from Fourth Drove and leaving via Fengate.
The front of the factory will provide a new home for the city council's award-winning electrical appliance recycling programme, which repairs or recycles components from electrical goods, and is currently based in rented industrial premises nearby in Newark Road.
The city's existing MRF, licensed to handle 75,000 tonnes of materials annually, is located on an adjoining site accessed from Fourth Drove. However, a shortage of space means that separated materials such as paper, card, glass, plastic bottles and food and drinks cans made from aluminium and steel, have to be stored in the open.
Councillor Wayne Fitzgerald, the city council's cabinet member for the environment, said: "These plans for a new materials recycling facility are an important first step in our aim to raise recycling rates to over 65 per cent - one of the highest targets in the country."
"Once the plans are approved, we can begin negotiations for the design, construction and operation of the new facility. Transferring our recycling operations to the new building will mean the existing MRF site will become available for the construction of an energy-from-waste plant, which will produce electricity and heat from non-recycled materials."
Peterborough has been top recycler among England's unitary authorities for the past two years and is hoping to achieve a recycling and composting rate of 50 per cent in the current year.
Under European Union and UK environment regulations, all local authorities have to make drastic reduction in the volumes of biodegradable waste that is buried in landfill sites. It means that, despite a growing population, Peterborough must reduce the biodegradable rubbish it landfills to just 34,135 tonnes - 75 per cent of 1995 levels - by 2009/10; to 22,736 tonnes (50 per cent of the 1995 total) by 2012/13; and to 15,909 tonnes (35 per cent of 1995 figures) by 2019/20.
In addition, the Dogsthorpe landfill tip used by the city council will be filled and closed by the end of 2013.
For more information about the city council's future waste management strategy visit http://www.65percentplus.co.uk/.
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