Sita’s £120m plan to turn waste into energy
Aug 2 2008 by Chris Knox, The Journal
WASTE company Sita UK plans to build a £120m waste-to-energy plant in the region that will provide electricity to thousands of homes in the region.
The firm, which employs around 350 staff in the North East, proposes to build the new facility adjacent to its existing site in Billingham.
The new incinerator would create between 40 and 50 jobs in the area and provide enough electricity each year to power a town the size of Hartlepool.
If accepted by Stockton Borough Council later this year, the plans would see the firm handle around 640,000 tonnes of waste each year in order to provide 50MW of green electricity to the national grid.
Graham Ingleson, general manager at the Tees Valley Energy from Waste Facility, said: “The NEERC will be an important development for the North East and will help confirm Tees Valley as a centre for energy recovery.
“This new generation facility will see the development of a plant that will produce renewable energy and reduce the need for landfill in the North East.” The plans are part of the firm’s efforts to create an eco-friendly business model in the North East after managing a number of landfill sites in the region.
Sita UK, which is owned by French business Suez Environment, has been in the United Kingdom since 1988 and has expanded to employ more than 5,000 people, while generating a turnover of around £700m.
It recently sparked outcry after receiving the go ahead to expand its Seghill landfill site in Northumberland, which will add 15 years to the life of the site and allow another 4.3 million tonnes of waste to be tipped.
A spokesman for firm’s North East operations, said: “There is some waste that you simply can’t convert into energy, so this needs to be dealt with via landfills.
“However, there is an ever decreasing number of sites suitable for landfill and as a result we are always on the look out for alternatives such as the new site in Billingham.”
