Work starts on £80 million London recycling plant
March 5, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Work began recently on a new £80 million recycling plant in London which will convert waste into gas that can be used to generate electricity.
London mayor Boris Johnson was present to mark the beginning of work on the advanced gasification plant, and said that local people won’t have to worry about any rubbish that they cannot recycle going to landfill because now “it will be used to power their homes with green energy”.
The plant is being built by Bioessence East London Ltd, a renewable energy firm in Dagenham, and is one of the first such plants to be built in the UK. Once it is fully up and running in 2013 it will be able to deal with 100,000 tonnes of waste every year, converting it into 19 megawatts of energy.
The process will see residual household waste being directed to the plant, where thermal and chemical processes will be used to break it down. This will create synthetic gas which can then be used to generate electricity.
The plant received an £8.9 million loan from LWaRB (the London Waste and Recycling Board). However, this was less than the £12 million originally pledged due to budget cuts.
The chair of LWaRB, James Cleverly, said that the plant “perfectly demonstrates how waste can be used as a resource.”
On top of the power that the plant will produce, it will also lead to the creation of a number of new jobs. 25 permanent jobs will be created when it is operational, and 100 construction jobs will be created during the building stage.
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