Agenda item

To receive a presentation from North London Waste on waste disposal and the North London Heat and Power Project. 

The Forum received a presentation from David Cullen (Programme Director North London Heat and Power) and Martin Capstick (Managing Director) of the North London Waste Authority.   Copies of the slides are available on the Council website. 

1.            Presentation

The following points were highlighted during the presentation:

·         The North London Waste Authority is the waste authority for 7 North London boroughs, serves over 2 million people, deals with 3% of the waste in the UK and is the second largest waste authority in the country. 

·         Their main objective was to minimise and avoid waste.  They run a large waste reduction and recycling programme.

·         Collection of waste has been key during the pandemic and they were proud to have been able to keep waste services running throughout. 

·         The authority ran the largest waste prevention programme in London including innovative schemes such as clothe swaps and low plastic zones.  This had been estimated to reduce waste by 10,000 tonnes per year. 

·         The current eco-park facility first opened in 1970 and is one of the oldest in Europe.  Work started on a replacement in 2019 following a public consultation.  The replacement is due to be completed by 2025. 

·         The project was aligned with Enfield’s ambition to make Edmonton an area of high quality industrial activity.  It will also supply heat to the Council’s company Energetik. 

·         The new facility will help tackle the climate emergency, reducing carbon emissions, promoting recycling and energy recovery.  It was a priority to avoid landfill. 

·         The new facilities will efficiently remove toxic substances from the air, equivalent to taking 200,000 cars off the road, improving air quality.

·         The district heating network is a very efficient use of energy.  The new plants will meet current and future standards. 

·         There are three elements to the proposals: 

o   A resource recovery facility which will enable more materials to be sorted for recycling and will have the capacity to manage 135,000 tonnes of material a year. 

o   The Ecopark House (a two storey pavilion next to the River Lea) which will act as a community hub for the circular economy including a visitor centre, education and community facilities and a base for Enfield sea cadets. 

o   The Energy Recovery Facility – using the latest technology to create energy with clean emissions.

·         Construction started in 2019 and the preparatory stages are now coming to an end.  The old and new facilities will be running along side each other. The whole programme will be complete in 2031.  A local company, Galldris Construction, has been employed to carry out the preparatory works. 

·         Part of the work involves diverting the path of a large sewer.  This is being done by a specialist tunnel borers Barhale. 

·         Taylor Woodrow are designing and constructing the Eco Park House and the Resource Recovery Centre. 

·         Construction work was paused in March, because of the pandemic and the authority’s determination to put safety first. Since then they had made a concerted effort to ensure that they were covid secure and have avoided transmission in the workplace. 

·         This was a publicly owned asset, following best employment practices.  Over 2,500 jobs and a minimum of 100 apprenticeships, 225 training opportunities would be created over the 10 years of the project. 

·         This was an opportunity to be carbon negative and help with the UK’s overall carbon reduction targets.

·         There had been a large amount of public consultation on the project with regular newsletters and strong local authority governance, accountable to the public. 

2.            Questions/Comments raised by forum members: 

2.1         Air quality from the facility was measured by the operator themselves internally and externally by London Energy.  There are also regular air quality monitoring activities which compare air quality from all sources. 

2.2         The contingency budget had been increased following the preparatory works when it was evident what work would be needed particularly in relation to the sewer diversion.   Work was currently forecast to be on budget. 

2.3         It was not possible to go through black rubbish sacks to sort out recyclable from non-recyclable waste. It was more efficient and effective to persuade people to sort the waste before it was collected. 

2.4         The population of North London was predicted to grow significantly which will mean more waste.  At the present time, London exports a proportion of its waste. The aim is to keep all waste in London.  While bringing waste down through recycling, it was still estimated that there would be enough residual waste to provide the energy required for the heat and power facility. 

2.5         A lot of local people, particularly in the New Southgate area, felt very strongly about the new facility.  They feared that it would be too big and would result in too much waste being transported into the borough from other areas.  The response was made that the development was crucial for North London and it was essential to make sure that capacity was available to meet current and future needs. Current behaviour had matched predictions so far. 

2.6         Improving communication about the recycling facility and educating people about the way that it worked could help to reduce opposition.  The authority was working to counteract negative publicity and had tried very hard to get across a positive message, using social media creatively, modernising the website and working with the councillors from member authorities. 

2.7         There was some fear that the coronavirus pandemic would decrease recycling, but recycling rates had improved by 0.5% this year.  They were however aiming to be much more ambitious than this in the future.

2.8         The Government’s 2018 Environment Bill should provide an incentive to encourage manufacturers to produce less packaging.  Deposit return schemes would also help reduce waste. 

2.9         Community engagement and education were key to encouraging recycling and reuse.

2.10      The district heating scheme is captive, but the electricity generation is not.  Any excess electricity can be fed into the grid.  Power could be provided to 127,000 homes. 

2.11      The new vehicle access will be in the same place as the old. 

2.12      There were no current plans to move waste along the river, although this might be considered in the future. 

2.13      The new facility will be able to deal with up to 700,000 tonnes of waste.  Capacity of the existing facility is 540,000 tonnes. 

2.14      Construction was being carried out as quickly as possible.  It was not possible to speed things up because of the need for sequencing. 

2.15      The responsibility for changing over to collection vehicles powered by electricity belonged to the individual boroughs.  Enfield was looking at the possibility and would be considering this when the refuse fleet had to be renewed in 2-3 years time. 

2.16      Using pyrolysis had been considered but there was no confidence that it could currently work at a sufficient scale. 

2.17      As the authority is owned by the boroughs, any profits generated by the facility is used by the boroughs to keep council tax rates down. 

The Chair thanked the representatives from North London Waste for their presentation.  They offered to return at a future date if more information was required.