Incinerator permit an 'important milestone'

A PERMIT approval for a giant household waste incinerator on Teesside has been described as an “important milestone”.

- By STUART ARNOLD Local Democracy Reporter [e-mail]

The Environment Agency confirmed on Wednesday that an environmental permit for the Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TVERF) due to be built on land at Teesworks, near Grangetown, had been granted to waste management firm Viridor.

Sources associated with the project, which will burn 450,000 tonnes of black bag waste a year generated from several council areas across the North East, said the permit to operate was “another important milestone” and “further evidence of regulatory safety.”

Ian Preston, an installations team leader at the Environment Agency, said: “I want to reassure people that the permit will ensure that robust levels of environmental protection are met. Environmental law sets out these conditions, and as a regulator we are obliged to issue the permit if we can find no reason that the operator would not be able to comply.”

Emissions from a similar energy-from-waste facility operated by Viridor in Beddington, Surrey have exceeded permitted levels on dozens of occasions.

A total of 61 breaches of an Environment Agency permit occurred between March 2019 and February this year, mostly concerning carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and ‘volatile organic compounds.