Old industry gives way to new

Jan 15 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

A FORMER steelworks site, adjacent to the A66 between Middlesbrough and Redcar is poised to take on a new industrial life as Tees Valley’s first dedicated waste management and recycling complex comes before planners at the end of the month.

Top of decision makers’ minds at Redcar and Cleveland Council will be the development’s potential to attract investment by dramatically reducing the amount of waste committed to landfill and create business opportunities for recovering and re-using ‘waste’ materials.

Plans by Newcastle-based Graphite Resources for Phase 1 of the development of the South Tees Eco Park (STEP) includes the company’s revolutionary Proteus steam autoclave waste treatment plant, which applies technology originally developed to sterilise medical equipment to sanitise household and commercial waste. The process breaks down non-organic components into clean recyclables and reduces organics to a fibre that can be used as a feedstock for energy production and/or a wide variety of other applications.

The proposed plant would comprise a series of Proteus autoclaves, each with the capacity to process 20-tonnes of domestic or commercial waste in approximately one hour. The process reduces the volume of waste by 80%, in addition to significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions and cutting the amount of waste consigned to landfill by 75%.

The STEP project has been driven forward by a steering group which flags up public and private sector partnership working in the Tees Valley. Comprising One North East, Tees Valley Regeneration (TVR), the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council, Tees Valley Joint Strategy Unit, Graphite Resources and Progressive Energy, as well as RTV, it is driving STEP to realise massive potential for the Tees Valley.

Companies have already recognised the feedstock potential of the materials recovered by Proteus, and a feasibility study has been commissioned to explore the scope and management of an innovative new Civic Amenity site that would handle domestic and commercial waste, as well as providing the base for another RTV-initiated project - a facility for the recovery and re-use of a wide range of building materials.

STEP’s potential neighbour on the former Corus site is another flagship Tees Valley project with which RTV has been heavily involved - the joint Progressive Energy/Centrica initiative to establish a £1bn clean coal power station with carbon capture and storage.