The corporation made a commitment in 2008 to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill by encouraging residents to reduce waste, increase participation in recycling and composting services and to send remaining waste to an energy-from-waste (EfW) plant.
The EfW facility – operated by Cory Environmental’s subsidiary, Riverside Resource Recovery in Belvedere – generates a net of about 66MW of electricity, feeding into the National Grid with enough electricity to serve around 100,000 homes.
The bottom ash residues from the facility are also transported by barge to a facility further along the Thames where the metals are recovered and the remaining residues recycled into road building and construction aggregates.
The corporation also made a pledge to minimise the environmental impact that waste-transport has on the environment. This is being achieved by transporting residual waste to the energy-from-waste facility by barge – a system which is also managed by Cory Environmental.
The transfer of waste by barge saves some 12,000 lorry movements per year which both reduces the carbon footprint of the operation and helps reduce traffic congestion.
Maxine Perella