New Earth Solutions Adds Waste to Energy Facility to Plant

12 November 2010 UK Based Waste treatment and renewable energy specialist, New Earth Solutions has won planning permission for the incorporation of an energy recovery facility at its Kings Weston Lane plant in Avonmouth, as well as a further local authority contract win, and the purchase of an additional consented renewable energy site. At the end of October, Bristol City Council granted planning permission for the incorporation of a 7.5 MW low-carbon renewable energy plant into New Earth Solutions' MBT facility. The company says that this will enable it to further reduce the use of landfill, and enhance the long-term environmental sustainability of the facility under construction. New Earth Solutions, which won the West of England Partnership residual waste management contract last year and is currently building a 200,000 tonnes per annum Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) facility, says it can now increase the tonnage it could treat in the Avonmouth area to around 400,000 tonnes annually. New Earth holds a nine year 120,800 tonnes per annum contract, commencing next April, with the four authorities that comprise the West of England Partnership. One of these, Bath and North East Somerset Council, has now awarded the company another waste treatment contract which will see New Earth handling the majority of the authority's residual waste from April 2013. The company says it has also recently agreed leasehold terms with Bristol City for an additional energy recovery site in the Avonmouth area. The newly acquired site forms part of the former Avonmouth incinerator site adjacent to Bristol City Council's Avonmouth Waste Transfer Station and Household Waste Recycling Centre. It is less than half a mile from where New Earth's MBT facility is currently under construction. The site already has planning permission for a gasification and pyrolysis Advanced Thermal Conversion (ATC) plant similar to those which New Earth itself is now developing. New Earth already owns a development site nearby in South Gloucestershire which has planning permission for 50,000 tonnes per annum of waste treatment, and operates an in-vessel composting facility at Sharpness in Gloucestershire which receives organic waste under contracts with Bristol City, Bath and North East Somerset and Cardiff Councils. Construction of New Earth's MBT at Avonmouth, a £26 million investment, is continuing, with the first waste to be delivered under the West of England contract expected in April 2011. The company says that all of these initiatives contribute to the diversion of waste from landfill or incineration by using treatment methods higher up the waste hierarchy. Managing Director Chris Cox is excited with the company's growth in the region: