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1. Who is involved in changing the way we manage our rubbish?
Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland councils are working together as the South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Partnership to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites every year.
By working together as a partnership, it will cost significantly less than if we approached this as individual authorities. Together we can find better ways of handling rubbish that will be value for money for our residents.
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2. Where did we start?
We started with a major public consultation in summer 2007, where we asked residents and businesses what they'd like to see happening with waste in Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland.
You told us that you recognise that we need to change our approach to waste, and that you welcome new ideas. You also told us that you want us to be more ambitious with our aims.
We then developed a Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy |which sets out the vision for a more sustainable future for our waste services over the next 20 years.
The plan prioritises reducing, reusing and recycling our rubbish. It looks at what we need to do to boost our recycling rates and how we can minimise the amount of waste that is sent to landfill. The strategy also sets out ambitious targets for improving recycling.
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3. So what are the new plans for dealing with our rubbish?
Our priorities are to almost double our recycling rate to 50% by 2020. We'll do this by improving recycling facilities and services, like the kerbside recycling service and the household recycling centres and raising awareness of how residents can reduce, reuse and recycle. We are introducing a brand new kerbside recycling system between May and November this year (2010). The current black boxes will be replaced by a blue wheeled bin that has an inner box. This will let residents recycle paper, glass, cans, cardboard and plastic bottles. This will mean residents can recycle much more and recycle extra materials too.
When we've reduced, reused and recycled as much of our rubbish as we can, there'll still be some rubbish left. It's this rubbish that we'll need to treat so that we can extract valuable resources from it. Fuel, compost, building materials, electricity and heat can all be created by treating rubbish, for example.
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4. What's happened with waste treatment plans recently?
We applied for Government funding to develop a waste treatment facility:
In late 2007 we sent what’s called an Outline Business Case| (OBC) to Defra to apply for Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding to go towards the cost of developing a facility that will treat our non-recycled rubbish. (OBC) to Defra to apply for Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding to go towards the cost of developing a facility that will treat our non-recycled rubbish.
The facility will mean the three authorities can treat around 190,000 tonnes of rubbish, which would normally go to landfill, to create something useful. Fuel, compost, building materials, electricity and heat can all be created by treating rubbish.
We got the funding that we applied for:
In July 2008 Defra granted the partnership £73.5m of PFI funding to go towards the development of a treatment facility.
We started a tendering process to find a company that can provide a waste treatment facility:
In August 2008 waste management companies were invited to express their interest in bidding for the waste treatment contract.
In January 2009 eight leading waste management companies were shortlisted to propose potential ways of treating our rubbish and where we could treat it. The companies shortlisted to prepare bids for the 25-year contract were Graphite Resources; MVV Umwelt GmbH; Shanks; SITA UK; United Utilities Networks; Urbaser S.A.; Veolia; and VT Environmental.
We further reduced the bidders for the treatment contract to three:
In June 2009 the eight original contenders for the Partnership’s waste treatment contract were further reduced to three.
MVV Umwelt, SITA UK, and United Utilities made the shortlist. The companies were then asked to provide more details about their proposals for further consideration.
All initial bids, which proposed how and where the rubbish could be treated and what resources could be recovered from it, were carefully evaluated. The three shortlisted companies submitted bids that scored best against strict criteria including sustainability, performance, deliverability and environmental considerations.
Three bidders became two bidders:
The Partnership cut its shortlist of companies in the running for its waste treatment contract down to two final bidders in December 2009. The companies were SITA UK and United Utilities.
We announced our ‘preferred bidder’:
In September 2010 we announced that SITA UK has won a competitive tender to build and operate a facility that will treat around 190,000 tonnes of the Partnership’s rubbish each year and turn it into electricity.
The electricity created each year will be the equivalent of the amount of energy used by 37,500 homes.
The rubbish collected will be sorted and bulked-up in the Partnership area before being transported to a state-of-the-art facility that will be built in Teesside. The waste will be treated by energy-from-waste which is a process that burns rubbish. This will create electricity which can be sold to the national grid or turned into steam to heat buildings.
Treating the rubbish by Energy from Waste in Teesside will result in a total carbon saving of 64,000 tonnes of CO2 per year compared to the current arrangements of sending waste to landfill - this is the equivalent to removing 21,700 cars from the road.
Sixty-six operational jobs will be created locally and on Teesside and around 100 construction jobs. The facility is set to be up and running in 2013.
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5. Why are we doing this?
We can no longer only send our rubbish to landfill. It's that simple.
We have to stop burying waste in landfills because they produce methane which is the greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Not only is landfill damaging to the environment, it is also expensive and it is a waste of a valuable resource because our rubbish can actually be treated in order to make it useful. Fuel, compost, building materials, electricity and heat can all be created by treating rubbish, for example.
We have about 355,000 tonnes of household rubbish to dispose of across the partnership area.
Waste is everyone's problem. We need to continue to encourage everyone to reduce, reuse and recycle. However, even if we hit our recycling targets of 50% recycling by 2020, that still leaves around 190,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste left to deal with.
We've made huge strides in waste management over the last six years, but we need to do more:
- In 2002-3 we recycled less than 5% of household waste, now we recycle 30%
- In 2002-3 we had no kerbside recycling service, now all our households have it
- We are rolling out a much improved kerbside recycling service to boost recycling even more – the black recycling boxes are being phased out and replaced by a blue wheeled bin that allows residents to recycle plastic and cardboard, as well as paper, glass and cans
- Our targets are to increase this to 45% by 2015 and 50% by 2020.
We are now working on new ways of managing our waste so that we can reduce the amount sent to landfill and meet our recycling targets.
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6. Where will the treatment facility be?
The waste treatment facility will be built in Teesside. The rubbish collected from homes will be sorted and bulked-up at transfer stations in the Partnership area before being transported to a state-of-the-art facility in Teesside.
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7. I have more questions about the South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Partnership and plans for waste. Who can I contact?
You can email any questions to recycling@gateshead.gov.uk| or call 0191 433 7000.