Press release - 09 Sep 2009

SITA UK and Cyclamax to partner on six new gasification-led Resource Parks for commercial and industrial waste

SITA UK has teamed up with waste management development company, Cyclamax, to develop six gasification and recycling-led Resource Parks, which will treat in excess of 600,000 tonnes of commercial and industrial waste. This agreement is one of the biggest ever commitments to developing gasification capacity in the UK and will produce enough electrical power for over 85,000 homes.

The first four resource parks will be developed using batched gasification technology, a relatively simple, but robust renewable energy technology distributed in the UK by Planet Advantage Limited and integrated into the EPC contract by Ascot Environmental Limited.

Four of the Resource Parks including Dagenham (part of the Sustainable Industries Park being developed by the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation in Dagenham), Avonmouth, Chesterfield and Derby have either received planning permission or are in the planning process. The locations of the two additional facilities will be announced in due course. SITA UK will develop its own materials recycling facilities on the Avonmouth, Derby and Chesterfield sites and will supply the waste to each facility.

Each Resource Park has been designed to be of a community scale and will provide the local area with an alternative solution for treating industrial and commercial waste with facilities to recover materials for recycling and recover energy from the residual waste. The first four facilities are expected to produce in excess of 45MW of electricity, sufficient to power over 85,000 homes. For example, the Sheepbridge facility will provide power for around 38 per cent of the homes in its host town of Chesterfield.

Stuart Hayward-Higham, Technical Director at SITA UK, says: “This agreement is one of the first of its kind in the UK and is an important step forward in investing in the alternate treatment technologies to service the industrial and commercial waste market at a local level in the UK”.

“At SITA UK our goal is to offer our customers a service that allows them to reach a point where the majority of their waste materials can be reused, recycled or recovered for their energy content, in others words to give waste ‘a second life’ wherever possible. Gasification is one of the many tools we can use to meet this goal and we are pleased to announce this agreement as another significant step forward in our plans.

“We believe that there is an exciting future for gasification and other energy recovery technologies in the UK.”

Tony Watkins, Managing Director of Cyclamax Holdings Limited, adds: “This is not about using technology for technology’s sake, nor about a one-size-fits-all approach. Our goal is to bring forward developments that have sustainability at their core; reducing the environmental impact of waste management and fossil fuel power production through recycling and generating renewable energy from non recyclable waste residues. We see each development as a community based project providing good quality local employment and in many cases returning Brownfield land back to beneficial use. Clearly, to successfully deliver these projects you need to work with like minded partners who share your aspirations and we are delighted to make the announcement of our agreement to work with SITA UK on these Resource Parks.

“By combining the expertise of both Cyclamax and SITA UK we feel we can offer localised, sustainable recycling and renewable energy solutions by productively diverting around 600,000 tonnes of waste away from landfill.

“Gasification technologies are particularly suited to delivering local community scale solutions and with investment levels of around £220M for the first four facilities, are economically competitive at this scale.”

SITA UK

SITA UK, a subsidiary of SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT, is a recycling and waste management company, generating environmental value, social value and economic value from our nation’s waste. The company delivers environmentally responsible and increasingly innovative solutions for the public, local government, industry and commerce, enabling our customers to reduce their impact on the environment. SITA UK serves over 12 million people and handles more than 10.9 million tonnes of domestic, commercial and industrial waste through a network of recycling, composting, energy-from-waste and landfill facilities. SITA UK employs over 5,500 staff and has an annual turnover in excess of £750 million.

SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT

Natural resources are not infinite. Each day, SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT (Paris: SEV, Brussels: SEVB) and its subsidiaries deal with the challenge to protect resources by providing innovative solutions to industries and to millions of people. SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT supplies drinking water to 68 million people, provides wastewater treatment services for 44 million people and collects the waste produced by 46 million people. SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT has 62,000 employees and, with its presence on a global scale, is the world’s leader exclusively dedicated to environmental services. In 2007, SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT, a 35% GDF SUEZ affiliate, achieved sales turnover of 12 billion euros.

GASIFICATION

Gasification has been used since the late 1800s for the production of town gas for street lighting and cooking in the home. It’s a process that can take waste materials and convert them to a gas called synthesis gas or syngas that is made up of differing proportions of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and some methane. Gasification uses the principles of combustion, however, the conditions are controlled so that they remain sub-stoichiometric, that is to say one part of the reaction is at a level less than required for the perfect reaction. In the case of gasification the oxygen levels are kept purposefully very low so that the combustion reaction only gets to the volatilisation stage where combustible gases are produced. The low level of oxygen ensures that these gases cannot combust themselves to complete the combustion reaction where all energy in the waste materials is then spent. The syngas generated can then be tapped off and used elsewhere for a multitude of applications.

Gasification is a highly efficient process whereby virtually all the energy in the material being gasified is released into the gas and, therefore, a very efficient method of generating steam and electricity from waste materials.

CYCLAMAX

Cyclamax is a Company whose remit is to develop Resource Parks throughout the UK. The Directors of the company have extensive experience in the Environment Sector and believe that maximising the resource in the waste created by local businesses can a sustainable way of reducing global warming and creating much needed engineering based jobs.

ASCOT ENVIRONMENTAL

Cyclamax has retained Ascot Environmental to provide turnkey gasification facilities at its first 4 projects. Ascot will be acting as main contractor providing the EPC guarantee wrap for each project. On 6th August Ascot, through its subsidiary Scotgen, officially opened the first commercial scale Batched Oxidation System gasification plant taking waste in the UK at Dumfries. Through the operation of the Scotgen facility, Ascot Environmental clearly demonstrate their leading position in the waste management supplier services market.