The integrated facility will include a recycling plant, an anaerobic digestion plant and a waste-to-energy plant for the treatment of residual household waste.

The contract to design, construct and operate a state-of-the-art integrated waste management facility was signed at the end of October between AmeyCespa, North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council. OWS was selected to supply the AD plant by AmeyCespa using the DRANCO technology which is able to handle contaminated organic fractions from mixed household waste, containing significant amounts of sand, glass and stones. The dry digestion technology employed by OWS allows operation with no or very little addition of water so that the digestate can easily be burnt together with the non-recyclable waste. The digestate will have a dry matter of 35% solids and can be pumped as such to the waste-to-energy plant for co-incineration. Other digestion technologies would require drying or dewatering of the digestate prior to mixing it with the non-recyclable fraction before incineration.

“The order for OWS amounts to € 15.2 million and comprises a DRANCO digestion unit for the treatment of 40.000 tonnes per year of organic waste (0-40 mm). The OWS scope of delivery includes a large digester, a gas storage, a flare and biogas engines with a capacity of around 1.8 MW” said Luc De Baere, managing director of OWS.

Construction of the facility is now expected to begin in December 2014 and take approximately 36 months to complete. It will become fully operational during 2018. Once completed, the facility – Allerton Waste Recovery Park – is expected to process around 320.000 tonnes of household and some commercial waste each year. It will also generate renewable electricity to power the equivalent of over 40.000 homes. This waste treatment plant is a prime example of the integration of different waste management techniques: recycling of metal, cardboard and plastics, anaerobic digestion of the ‘wetter’ organic fraction, and co-incineration of the non-recyclable fraction and the digestate, with energy recovery in order to make maximum use of a low quality stream such as residual household waste.

More information about the project can be found here.