New food waste facility for Staffordshire
John Pointon and Sons Ltd (JPS) in Staffordshire have announced plans to construct a £12 million, 60,000 tonnes per annum Food Waste Anaerobic Digestion (AD) and renewable energy facility at their site in Cheddleton, Staffordshire. The scheme has been granted planning permission and will be co funded by a £1.44 million capital grant fund from WRAP and Advantage West Midlands (AWM).
Detailed design has been finalised and the project is expected to move into the construction phase later this year. The new development is part of a proposed Energy Resource Centre (ERC) on the existing site and will now include a regional Anaerobic Digestion (AD) facility for the collection and treatment of commercial and industrial food waste with recovery to renewable energy.
The Company have been awarded a grant of £1.44 million from WRAP and Advantage West Midlands under their food waste capital fund programme. The surrounding region has been identified as an important regional food and drinks capacity with good business growth opportunities and therefore the aim of the funding scheme is to support projects which divert commercial and industrial organic material from landfill to a sustainable technology such as AD.
The concept of biowaste to energy is now being widely applied for the conversion of commercial and household food waste to biogas. The technology platform is well established and has been operational on large food waste and household kitchen waste treatment and recycling plants for over 10 years across Europe.
The local MP Karen Bradley said, "I am very pleased to see this local business grow and increase Anaerobic Digestion, which is in line with the government’s plans to promote alternative energy sources and reduce landfill."
This project will build important new treatment capacity in the area and protect existing processing capacity at the existing animal by product rendering facility on site. The plant is expected to produce over 2MW of electricity from food waste which currently goes to landfill. Furthermore, the state of the art AD Facility and the ERC will create 50 new jobs on the Cheddleton site.
Barney Williams, Technical Director at JPS said, "We are delighted to achieve planning approval for our AD project and on behalf of John Pointon & Sons we would like to thank WRAP and AWM for their support in the form of the capital grant funding for our facility. The ethos of our company is to provide a sustainable and cost effective food waste collection and disposal service for all food and organic wastes. By doing so we are helping to achieve UK and EU landfill reduction targets and at the same time provide renewable energy for our existing site in Staffordshire."
"We are looking forward to developing our AD facility as a natural symbiosis between our core business, developed over the past 30 years, and the development of our future renewable energy strategy. It is one of the most exciting projects in the region and it stands out as a major renewable energy development in the UK."
JPS are the leading rendering and recycling company in the UK and operate the single largest processing site in the country. Their rendering facility at Cheddleton is one of the most modern in the UK and JPS has become one of the first rendering and recycling companies to be awarded ISO 14001 environmental certification and OHSAS 18001 Management systems. All process and abatement technology on the site meet the EA requirements for Best Available Technology (BAT) and Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO).
