Speaking to letsrecycle.com this week, the company said that from April 2007 it will use an in-vessel composting system with heated walls and floors to process wastes including the biodegradable component of residual household waste.
 Work on Envar's in-vessel composting project in Cambridgeshire is due to be completed by April |
The new technology has been designed by both Envar and Dutch technology company Gicom Composting Systems. It is aimed at minimising the risks of “cold spots” in unheated systems which could foster harmful pathogens.
The system will be tested in one of four composting tunnels currently under construction at Envar's large commercial composting site in St Ives, Cambridgeshire. On completion, the 1. 5 million tunnels will add 20,000 tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste treatment capacity to the facility.
Jochem Boeke, Envar project manager, said: “At the moment the concrete structure is finished and building is being completed around it for the new plant. The first waste load is scheduled to go in in April.”
MBT
The Envar project, which has received 1.2 million from the Demonstrator Programme, will take kitchen and garden waste as well as organic material from residual waste known as “fines”.
Mr Boeke explained that Envar, which is part of the ADAS group of companies, would source the material from an MBT plant in England, which is under negotiation. Envar would then assess the performance of the technology on the waste stream in line with the Demonstrator Programme, which is testing nine different technologies around the UK.
(see letsrecycle.com story)
Envar hopes that the Gicom technology will produce around 600kg of compost for every 1000 kg of organic waste, which will then be used in land restoration and as a soil conditioner.
Patrick Pierrepont, business manager of Envar, explained: “If the scheme is approved the technology could cut the UK's annual biodegradable waste mountain in half and provide an immediate, sustainable and cost-effective solution to the waste problem.”
He added: “For many local authorities and waste producers landfill tax now accounts for a huge proportion of their disposal costs, and they face huge challenges in selecting and adopting environmentally sustainable waste management solutions.”
Subscribe for free