Green light for £100m NLWA resource recovery plant

The North London Waste Authority (NLWA) is to invest £100m in a new resource recovery facility at the Edmonton EcoPark, due to open in 2023.It said this would help it to meet its target of recycling at least half of materials collected across the boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest.The new facility is to have the capacity to recycle around 135,000 tonnes of waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill and will include a reuse and recycling centre to which residents can bring recyclable materials.There will also be an education and community centre called Eco Park House, which will help local people learn about the circular economy.In all, NLWA will invest some £1.2bn at Edmonton, including £600m for an energy-from-waste (EfW) facility and £250m for site preparation works.It has chosen to call the new plant an ‘energy recovery facility’ in order to ”reflect its technical efficiency, which is a result of modern technology, and exceeds that of the current EfW plant”.The EfW will replace the existing plant at Edmonton EcoPark, which is reaching the end of its operational life.This option was chosen as mechanical biological treatment would need two additional processing plants and a facility to burn the fuel created, increasing the process’ cost and carbon footprint, the authority said.