Green Investment Bank to part-fund £750m recycling plant

The company has signed a PFI agreement with a 25-year term to provide waste treatment services to Wakefield Council. As part of the contract, it will build a facility in South Kirby to treat and recycle up to 230,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste a year.

The facility, funded by lending from the GIB and a consortium of international banks, is expected to dramatically reduce the amount of waste sent by the local authority to landfill. The GIB is a new Government-backed bank set up to provide finance to private sector projects and to support green infrastructure investment.

As part of the contract, the company will also take over the running of various household waste recycling centres and transfer stations within the local authority area. It also plans to build a visitors' centre at the main site, where it will run waste reduction promotion and education campaigns.

"Our solution will help [Wakefield Council] to make more from the waste they produce by increasing recycling, generating green energy and producing compost for land remediation and use by residents," said Shanks chief executive Peter Dilnot. "We are excited that the Green Investment Bank has chosen this project as one of its first major investments, which will see Shanks draw on experience from across our Group to deliver a genuinely sustainable solution."

The new facility will use a mix of technologies such as mechanical treatment, autoclave and  anaerobic digestion and there will be a new energy from waste plant . A separate onsite materials recycling facility will separate out materials which can be reused by specialist markets and the plant will also produce refuse-derived fuel for processing at a new plant  at Ferrybridge Power Station.

Wakefield Council leader Peter Box welcomed the investment, which will create 60 permanent jobs in the area as well as employ a further 250 people at the construction stage.

"It is excellent news for the district, bringing jobs and investment, as well as improving a service which is always high on the public's agenda," he said. "It gives us the opportunity to safeguard jobs of current employees who work in this area and provide new jobs in one of the most deprived areas in the district with the building and opening of the new waste treatment plant in South Kirby."