Recycling, Renewable Energy, Resource Efficiency

Oxfordshire County Council agrees to sign contract with Viridor

Posted 27 Jul 2010

Today (27 July), at an extraordinary meeting, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Members unanimously agreed to sign contract with Viridor to treat the county’s residual municipal waste. This will help the council meet its obligations under the EU Landfill Directive and the UK Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS).

Welcoming the Cabinet’s decision, Viridor’s managing director Mike Hellings said:

"This decision represents a key milestone in the development of this project and we are proud that Oxfordshire’s Cabinet Members recognised that our proposals are essential for the authority to meet its targets and deliver a good and value for money service to its residents.

“Viridor’s proposals have been designed to provide the council with a safe, robust and cost-effective solution to meet its needs and to complement its already successful recycling and waste prevention initiatives.

“I would like to congratulate our team and we all look forward to progressing this project further and delivering a first-class treatment facility for the residents of Oxfordshire”.

Viridor, one of the UK’s leading recycling, renewable energy and waste management companies, is proposing to build and operate a state-of-the-art Energy from Waste (EfW) facility at its existing landfill and recycling site in Ardley, north Oxfordshire, which will have a capacity to process 300,000 tonnes of waste.

Viridor’s proposal will result in additional benefits for the local economy – particularly important in the current economic environment – including the creation of around 40 permanent jobs and many more during construction.

Wider environmental benefits include the landfill diversion of at least 95 percent of waste delivered to the facility and the generation of up to 24MW of electricity to be supplied to the National Grid.

Energy from Waste is a well established technology which is safe, robust and cost-effective. There are already 429 EfW operational plants in Europe, providing effective diversion of waste from landfill and an alternative to fossil-fuel electricity generation.

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