Earlier this month 12 Rotarians and friends enjoyed a guided tour of the Energy from Waste Facility at North Hykeham (off the Lincoln bypass).
The facility receives what would be recognised locally as ‘black bin waste’ i.e. the household rubbish that cannot be recycled or spread on fields and so would traditionally be buried in a landfill site before the Landfill Tax made the cost prohibitive. The rubbish is delivered either directly by the bin wagons or by lorries which transfer waste from collection sites spread throughout the country providing the bin wagons with local drop off points.
The facility is owned by Lincolnshire County Council and operated by a private company. It began operation in 2013 burning waste 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The heat is used to superheat steam which drives a turbine producing 11.24 megawatts of electricity (enough to power around 15,000 homes) which is sold to the grid. This revenue will eventually pay for the sites construction. The residual ash is used as the foundation for new roads and metal sent for recycling.
This part of the process takes up remarkably little space with the bulk of the facility actually dedicated to ‘cleaning’ the smoke which is carefully monitored at all times.
The building was clearly designed to accommodate tours and school outings, Sally was a friendly and genuinely enthusiastic host, and I’m sure we’d all recommend it to any interested groups. The smell of rubbish is surprisingly absent outside though as you move up the floors of the facility it does become noticeable before reaching something of a crescendo in the control room!
We concluded our tour with a trip to Damon’s for lunch before heading back in time for our meeting in Sutton on Sea.
I regret I was so interested in the facility I forgot to take a single photo – please visit the website for more information: https://www.fccenvironment.co.uk/waste-processing/