Visit to the Energy Recovery Facility at Ardley ERF

I have sometimes wondered where everything goes that we put into our rubbish bins and, although I have always been an avid recycler and done the usual separated recycling, I would feel guilty about putting anything into the rubbish and on into landfill.

Then, through Abingdon Carbon Cutters, I heard about a visit to the Energy Recovery Facility which opened last November at Ardley, just north of Bicester where they have a new way of dealing with all the tons of rubbish we produce.

I visited it recently and was amazed.  It is a huge facility built by Viridor using state-of-the-art waste management technology developed in France and Germany.  We were welcomed with a very interesting talk, then split into two groups, donned protective clothing, and given a guided tour.  It was fascinating to see the massive 35m high structure and the miles of piping and cables.  The whole visit was really informative, very clean and not at all smelly, as I had expected!

The facility has two huge furnaces where the rubbish is burnt at 850ºC.  The hot air is then pumped out, cooled and purified and the steam produced during this process generates electricity, about 29 megawatts (MW) of which 3 MW are used to run the plant and the rest is fed into the National Grid.  This amount is capable of producing enough electricity to run 38,000 homes, and the infrastructure is already in place to provide central heating for Bicester Eco Town in the future.

This self-contained process produces about 10,000 tonnes of ash per year which is used for road building and can also be processed into carbon neutral breeze blocks for use in construction. Brilliant!

What is more, in the future they may be able to dig up and use the old landfill sites, and they can also burn the horrible plastics that can't go to into the recycling.

I have had to re-adjust my recycling habits since my visit as I wasn't aware of the different types of plastics and the way they should be recycled.  Plastics that make a 'crinkly' sound,i.e. salad bags, crisp packets, etc., I have now learnt, should go into rubbish.  The recyclenow website gives some more up-to-date information on what things go where.

I would thoroughly recommend a visit and tours can be arranged by contacting Alexandra Pyle, Waste Recycling Officer at the Vale on 01235 540566 or e-mail
Alexandra.Pyle@southandvale.gov.uk

The next visit will probably be 4^th August.  Viridor also have a great Visitors Centre, organize school visits and engineering apprenticeship schemes.

https://viridor.co.uk/assets/REDESIGN/ABOUT-US/PUBLICATION-PDFS/VIRIDOR-ERF.pdf