Controversial waste plant gets go-ahead
A MERSEYSIDE council has given the green light to a £40m recycling plant despite opposition from residents.
Twelve of the 20 Knowsley Metropolitan Borough planning committee members voted last night to grant Energos planning permission to build the 24-hour-a-day waste facility at Knowsley Business Park.
Energos, a subsidiary of Salford-based energy group ENER-G, said the site would convert non-recyclable waste – that would otherwise go to landfill – into electricity for up to 10,000 homes.
It wants the plant, which uses a thermal treatment technique called gasification, to be an environmental technology showcase that will employ 18 people and require 65 construction workers during the next two years.
But up to 150 residents heckled councillors, council officers and Energos’s managing director Nick Dawber at the planning meeting. They argue the development would be unsuitable for the area, creating more heavy goods traffic and health and safety concerns from the plant’s emmissions.
Energos said the were no health concerns and all emissions fall well inside EU guidelines for dioxins.
Mr Dawber said: “This is a community-sized solution for local waste that would otherwise fill up landfill sites and emit damaging greenhouse gases. We offer a proven and world class, low-emission gasification technology with a 12-year track record of safe operation in Norway.
“We understand that residents have concerns and that our process has been confused with mass-burn incineration, but ours is a very different new generation technology. It’s a bit like comparing a large bonfire to controlled combustion of a gas ring on a cooker hob.”
Gasification is a finely controlled two-stage process that converts non-recyclable waste into a gas by using the heat of partial combustion. The gas is then fully combusted to generate heat, which is used to produce steam and electricity.
