It was announced this week that Viridor had been selected to design, construct, finance and operate the Clyde Valley Residual Waste Partnership project, with a contract worth up to £700m over 25 years.

North Lanarkshire is the lead authority for the contract, and is joined in the project by East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire and Renfrewshire.

The solution proposed by Viridor will process approximately 190,000 tonnes of residual waste per year, helping Scotland towards national targets for recycling 70% and diverting 95% from landfill by 2025.

Value for money

The waste will be collected by each council and delivered to a transfer station within their boundary.

Viridor will transport this to their primary treatment facility in North Lanarkshire, where recyclables will be removed. The remaining waste stream will be converted into a refuse derived fuel and transported to Viridor’s Energy Recovery Facility at Dunbar, East Lothian.

North Lanarkshire Council deputy leader Jim Smith said: “This is an excellent example of shared service which will see an end to domestic waste being dumped in landfill and deliver savings and service improvements. Importantly, it will offer best value for money to taxpayers in the five council areas.

Green makeover

The new facility is another step in a ‘green makeover’ currently underway the Clyde Valley region. Earlier this week, Siemens announced it had received an order for 54 wind turbines (with 173MW capacity) to be added to the Clyde wind farm in South Lanarkshire.

The Clyde wind farm already has 152 operational turbines, making it the third-largest wind farm in Europe.

And In related news this week, Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing was in London on Monday, campaigning against the UK Government’s subsidy cuts, which he said were “anti-business, anti-environment and anti-energy security”.

Brad Allen

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