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27
Oct
Council explains Allerton Park incinerator's failure to meet recycling target
Poor quality in recyclables is partly to blame for Allerton Park incinerator failing to meet its targets, say council officials.
Allerton Park Waste Recovery Park, which is based off the A1(M) near Knaresborough and cost £1.2 billion to build, aims to divert 320,000 tonnes of waste a year away from landfill.
However, it has failed to meet its recycling targets every year since it began operations in 2018.
The site is tasked with setting aside 5% of household waste which comes into the plant.
But, according to a recent performance report, Allerton Park only managed to recycle 1.78% last year.
The site separates recyclables from household waste when it arrives at the plant. It then sells on the material to recycling processors.
But, the plant has never met its contracted target, which is set by both North Yorkshire Council and City of York Council. It managed just over 2% for the first time in 2022.
The Allerton Park incinerator. Picture: North Yorkshire Council.
The Stray Ferret asked North Yorkshire Council if it could explain why the plant failed to meet its target for 2023/24.
We also asked whether the council had taken any action against the company responsible for operating the site, Thalia Waste Management, for its performance.
Michael Leah, the council’s assistant director for environment, said the authority had agreed a “performance improvement plan” with the contractor.
He added that the council had also applied performance deductions as a result of the missed targets, but did not specify how much.
In 2022, the Stray Ferret reported that both councils levied £653,000 in performance deductions for the first three years of its operations for missed targets.
Mr Leah said that the failure to meet recycling targets was partly down to a difficulty in selling the recycled material to processors.
He said:
Recycled material can only be extracted from the mechanical treatment plant at AWRP. If the facility isn’t available, then recycled material can’t be extracted from incoming waste, and output would decrease.
AWRP separates recyclables from residual waste, so the quality can be poorer than recyclables collected from the kerbside. Recycling processors choose higher quality materials, so despite the materials being separated, it can be difficult to sell them. Also, in previous years, high energy costs meant that some of the recycling processors were not accepting materials.
Burning waste dirtiest form of UK energy
The figures come as new research by the BBC has found that burning household waste to produce electricity is now the dirtiest way the UK generates power.
It found that burning waste produces the same amount of greenhouse gases for each unit of energy as coal power, which was abandoned by the UK last month.
The BBC found that the number of waste-to-energy incinerators in the UK has increased from 38 to 52 in the last five years.
The research will bring heightened focus on the Allerton Park plant site, particularly as it continues to miss its recycling targets.
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