Councils engaged with a scheme to bring a new household waste incinerator to Teesside have been given a “look before you leap” warning.
The Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TVERF) is projected to burn 450,000 tonnes of residual black bag waste a year generating electricity also and is due to be sited on land at Teesworks near Grangetown.
A decision is due soon on whether to award a near 30-year contract for the proposed facility to waste operator Viridor with the local authorities involved, who are sharing the procurement costs, each giving their own sign-off.
Green Party councillors in North Yorkshire said they had “recent lived experience” with a similar facility, Allerton Waste Recovery Park (AWRP) – currently operated by the firm Thalia and commissioned by North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Councils – and the “consequences” of a long-term contract.
The AWRP will be familiar to many Teessiders as it occupies a prominent position just off the A1 and its plume stack can be seen by motorists when driving south from the A19.
An open letter co-signed by councillors from the Green Party group on North Yorkshire County Council to Darlington Council, Durham County Council, Hartlepool Council, Middlesbrough Council, Newcastle City Council, Redcar and Cleveland Council and Stockton Council said there had been 69 environmental permit breaches last year.
It also cited a City of York Council executive report which said resources for supervision and management of the contracts signed in North Yorkshire were “greater than originally assessed”.
The letter said: “The schedule for guaranteed waste delivered by [councils] is set out for the whole of the contract in advance.
“For AWRP, the amount of waste we have to deliver goes up each year of the contract, whilst UK targets are trying to drive residual waste down.”
It said the consequences included the North Yorkshire councils missing out on transitional funding from the Government for new mandatory household food waste collections being introduced next year.
This was because an exemption had been provided until 2043 as delivery of the food waste collections would have impacted on tonnage targets associated with the AWRP leading to “crippling” financial penalties able to be levied by the operator.
The letter sent to the TVERF partners also warned of the financial impact of the incoming Emissions Trading Scheme which requires polluters to pay for carbon dioxide emissions, costs passed onto councils in this instance.
It said because it was not a tax and tied to commercial markets, North Yorkshire County Council could only “best guess” what its figure might be, having budgeted £6m in 2028, when the scheme goes live, but this could be “several million pounds out”.
The letter concluded: “For the Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility, depending on what the guaranteed tonnages are, the seven councils could be tying into a contract with unknown consequences that prevent them from making unforeseen changes and improvements to their waste collections, stopping them from making financial savings, meeting their statutory obligations, and potentially benefiting from future Government funding.
“We would strongly recommend that your councils look before you leap and think very carefully before committing to this long-term contract.”
Both North Yorkshire and City of York councils declined to comment on the content of the open letter, but AWRP operator Thalia issued a lengthy statement in response.
It said the facility was run using “best available techniques” and regulated by the Environment Agency.
The statement said: “At Thalia, we are proud of the long-standing partnership with North Yorkshire Council and City of York Council in our shared journey to decarbonise and minimise the environmental impact of residual household waste in our communities.
“[Since 2017] AWRP has diverted more than 1.5 million tonnes of waste from landfill, avoiding greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the carbon footprint of waste treatment in North Yorkshire by an estimated 27%.
“The facility generates enough electricity to power over 60,000 homes – a town the size of Harrogate – contributing to the UK’s renewable energy goals.”
It said AWRP was more than an energy from waste facility and all waste received at the site was managed to extract and process food waste, mitigating the need for dedicated food waste collections.
Recyclable items left in residual waste were also removed for recycling, although the company conceded that a target in this respect had fallen short due to a “number of factors”.
If chosen, Viridor will design, build and finance the TVERF with the councils involved paying sums back through the cost of the service provided over the lifetime of the awarded contract.
Statements previously issued on behalf of the TVERF project board have described a “critical and essential piece of infrastructure” and the “safest, most reliable and most sustainable way to manage our region’s residual waste and fundamentally a continuation of practices that have taken place in Teesside for many decades now without incident or concern”.
Existing contracts with the private sector to use this method of disposal are coming to an end with the councils clubbing together to jointly procure their own waste management solution, which it is also said will achieve economies of scale.
A motion previously laid before Redcar and Cleveland Council, which gave planning permission for the TVERF, described it as an “environmental, financial and health outcome disaster”.
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