Capture                                      

Transport, Economy and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee

 

20 October 2022

 

Allerton Waste Recovery Park – 2021-22 performance report

 

Report of the Assistant Director – Travel, Environmental and Countryside Service

 

1.0          Purpose of Report (Mandatory)

   

1.1          To provide members of the Transport, Economy and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee with an update on Allerton Waste Recovery Park performance for the 2021-22 Contract Year.

 

 

2.0         Key Background Information

 

2.1       The long term Waste PPP contract was signed by North Yorkshire County Council and AmeyCespa (AWRP) SPV Limited (Amey) on 30 October 2014.  Following contract completion, Amey began a three year construction phase with the development commencing on 05 January 2015.

 

2.2       Allerton Waste Recovery Park (AWRP) has been operational since 01 March 2018 and consists of a Mechanical Treatment (MT) plant, an Anaerobic Digester (AD) and Energy from Waste (EFW) facility to receive and treat residual waste.

 

2.3       The site also has a Visitor and Education Centre where members of the public and groups can visit the facility to learn about management of waste.  The facility can receive up to 320,000 tonnes of waste per annum in accordance with the Planning Permission.

 

2.4       This report follows an Allerton Waste Recovery Park update report presented to TEE OSC on 21 October 2021 and focuses on performance for the 2021-22 Contract Year.

 

3.0         2021-22 performance

 

Tonnage Deliveries

3.1       The AWRP contract provides pricing bands dependant on the tonnage of waste delivered. There is a financial incentive for North Yorkshire and City of York councils and Yorwaste to deliver waste volumes up to the top of ‘TBand 2’. In 2021-22, the top of TBand 2 was 276,131 tonnes. The Contract Waste delivered was 276,130.6 tonnes made up from the following sources:

·                NYCC 174,608.7 tonnes

·                CYC 52,555.8 tonnes

·                Yorwaste commercial 48,966.1 tonnes

 

3.2       Amey have improved the plant’s availability (described further in paragraph 3.7). When the plant is unavailable, Amey have arranged for Contract Waste to be delivered to alternative treatment or disposal facilities. These measures have increased the amount of waste managed by Amey to 314,330 tonnes in 2021-22 (an increase of 8,906 tonnes) of which 291,296 tonnes was treated at AWRP.  The maximum treatment threshold for AWRP in 2021-22 was 320,000 tonnes. 

 

Contractual performance

3.3       Table 1 shows the performance for the last two Contract Years against the Authority Requirement contractual targets.  The table also includes estimated performance figures for the current contract year.

 

Target

Authority Req

2020-21

2021-22

22-23 Forecast

Recycling/composting of Contract Waste

5%

1.08%

1.04%

c2.2%

Landfill diversion of Contract Waste

70%

80.94%

89.40%

c89%

Table 1 – Contract Performance

 

Recycling performance

3.4       Recycling performance for 2021-22 was 1.04% against a contractual target of 5%, a marginal decrease from 2020-21.  Mechanical issues with the MT equipment required the plant to be periodically run in ‘by-pass’ mode, which means recyclates are not extracted. It has also been challenging to place plastics with a limited number of off-takers due to it being recovered from the residual waste stream.

 

3.5       In April 2022, a two week planned shutdown of the MT was completed to replace the main in-feed conveyors and overhaul the MT.  Since the maintenance works have been competed, MT performance has significantly improved. Amey forecast availability to be 73% this year (compared to 52% in 2021-22), and forecast recycling performance to be 2.2% (peaking at 3.3% in June).

 

Landfill diversion performance

3.6       The amount of waste diverted from landfill improved significantly in 2021-22. A diversion rate of 89.40% was achieved in 2021-22, an increase of 8.46% against the previous contact year.

 

3.7       The availability of the EFW is an important factor affecting diversion from landfill.  Table 2 shows the performance of the EFW for tonnage throughput and availability for the last two Contract Years.

 

2020-21

2021-22

Change

Tonnage throughput

227,653

256,728

12.8%

Availability (time)

77.8%

84.3%

6.5%

Table 2 – EFW performance

 

3.8       The EfW plant was available for more time (+6.5%) in 2021-22 compared to the previous year, which allowed more waste (+12.8%) to be processed. During the 9 months outside of the planned outages, the EFW plant achieved 93.9% availability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.9       The reason for improved availability is due to far fewer unplanned outages arising from defects and operational failures. For instance, Amey secured specialist advice from industry experts to trial and identify new refractory linings and fixings to improve longevity and negate the need for repairs prior to planned outages. Table 3 shows the reduction in EfW downtime by type of incident.

 

 

2020-21(days)

2021-22 (days)

Planned downtime

21

28

Unplanned downtime – defect

34

12

Unplanned downtime – other

(including operational, staffing etc.)

27

17

Total

82

57

Table 3 – EfW downtime by type

 

Visitor Centre

3.10     As Covid-19 restrictions eased during 2021-22, AWRP welcomed 162 people for onsite tours and delivered virtual sessions to a further 269 members of the public.  Amey also continued to develop their education resources and materials engaging with schools, community groups and the libraries service.

 

3.11     AWRP took part in a number of outreach activities over the year including the Great big Green Week Yorkshire Coast, Pumpkin-fest (zero food waste awareness day) and an NYCC COP26 workshop for schools.  The website had 4,697 views over the year and carbon pledges have offset 1,129kg of carbon since the Visitor Centre was launched in 2018.

 

4.0       Summary

 

4.1       Contract year 2021-22 is the best year to date for landfill diversion and EfW availability. Works undertaken in April 2022 at the MT plant have benefitted the recycling performance that will be included in 2022-23 report.

 

4.2       In 2022-23, further opportunities are being explored with the councils, Amey and Yorwaste seeking to optimise the types of waste delivered to the plant to secure continued performance improvements.

 

5.0          Recommendation

 

5.1        To note the content of this report

 

 

Author - Lisa Cooper, Commercial Manager Waste

Presenter - Michael Leah, AD TECs/ Peter Jeffreys, Head of Waste

Date – 20 October 2022

 

Background papers relied upon in the preparation of this report: - None

For further information contact the author of the report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendices:

None

 

6.0         Key Implications

 

Local Member

 

ü All

 

Financial

 

This report is a factual summary of the information provided by Amey as part of their Annual reports required under the contract.  Costs of the contract are covered by the existing waste management budget.  There are no financial implications of this report.

 

Human Resources

 

The report is a factual summary of the information provided by Amey as part of their Annual reports required under the Contract.  There are no human resources implications of this report.

 

 

 

Legal

 

The report is a factual summary of the information provided by Amey as part of their Annual reports required under the Contract.  There are no legal implications of this report.

 

Equalities

 

The report is a factual summary of the information provided by Amey as part of their Annual reports required under the Contract.  There are no equality impacts of this report.

 

 

Environmental Impacts/Benefits including Climate Change Impact Assessment:

 

A Climate Change Impact Assessment has not been completed.  This report does not require a decision to be made and the environmental impacts were considered as part of the Financial Close report to Council in 2014.