Clydeport owners unveil £180m plan to turn rubbish into power and hot water for Glasgow

PLANS for a second major plant to turn Glasgow’s rubbish into electricity were unveiled today.

Just weeks ago council bosses signed a deal to ship the city’s trash to a £150 million “energy-for-waste” plant to be built on the South Side of the city.

Now another big private operator has announced plans for a similar facility near George V docks, in Shieldhall, as part of a larger £180m investment.

The proposal – from Peel, the infrastructure giant which owns Clydeport – underlines how much brass there is to be made from the city’s muck.

Glasgow City Council – and firms which generate rubbish such as the big supermarkets – will soon face punishing landfill taxes if they continue burying their waste in the ground.

So instead they are looking for businesses which will recycle their waste for hard cash, much of it in facilities referred to as “incinerators” by their critics.

Peel Environmental believes there is more than enough rubbish generated in Glasgow to keep their firm, Viridor and other potential operators in business.

It plans a £145m energy-from-waste plant and sorting centre on land owned by Clydeport to the south of the M8 on Bogmoor Road, close to the company’s still active George V dock and Hillington Industrial Estate.

The facility will be called the South Clyde Energy Centre, or SCEC, and will process some 250,000 tonnes of rubbish a year.

This will be backed up by a second facility, costing £35m, at Rothesay Dock down the Clyde in West Dunbartonshire.

That centre will process another 250,000 tonnes of waste, half of which would be turned into fuel for plants such as the one at Shieldhall.

Crucially, Peel hopes its energy-from-waste plant will be able to fire up a whole new district heating system at Shieldhall, capable of providing cheap heat and hot water to potential customers such as the Braehead mall, the new Southern General Hospital and businesses in Hillington.

Peel Environmental’s Rob Watson said: “Bringing forward plans for major investment in Glasgow will support new jobs, help deliver the waste strategy for the Clyde Valley by diverting waste from landfill and potentially contribute towards Glasgow’s district heating aspirations.

“We hope to emulate the success of other cities in Europe, many of which have energy-recovery centres in a central location.”

Environmentalists, however, take a dim view of the technology.

Glasgow’s Green MSP Patrick Harvie said: “Modern energy-from-waste plants aren’t the incredibly dirty incinerators of old but they still rely on a continual stream of waste which should be recycled, and any industrial-scale use of this technology should be an option of last resort.

“Glasgow could do so much better at recycling if the council put the right services in place.

“The danger with energy from waste is that it ends up as the default solution, and genuinely greener options would simply never see the light of day.”

Glasgow has one of the worst recycling records in Scotland, although city chiefs believe energy-from-waste could reverse this.

Peel, like Viridor, plans to sort rubbish before it is turned into a fuel for burning.

The Shieldhall plant will produce up to 20MW of electricity, enough to power 38,000 homes. However, Peel would rather generate hot water that could be piped to local homes and businesses.

City Chambers insiders stress that Glasgow council wants to see such district heating networks emerge throughout the city.

Indeed, council bosses had looked at their own rubbish depot near Shieldhall as a potential site for energy-for-waste, with the Southern General seen as an obvious customer for the hot water it would generate.

Officials are already looking at how the proposed Viridor plant, in Polmadie, could be used to heat neighbouring homes.

Glasgow City Council alone produces nearly 400,000 tonnes of municipal rubbish a year. Under its deal with Viridor it will ship some 175,000 tonnes to the Polmadie plant each year for 25 years.

However, the Evening Times understands there is more than enough waste generated across the West of Scotland to keep both energy-from-waste plants fired up for years.

Peel’s two facilities and Viridor’s one have still to get planning permission and permits from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

As revealed in the Evening Times last year there are plans for an even bigger £640m energy-from-waste complex, the Lifetime Recycling Village, near Newton Mearns in East Renfrewshire.

This scheme, however, is facing major opposition.

Peel, Viridor and Lifetime Recycling Village together are proposing investments worth roughly £1bn. And all to process rubbish from the West of Scotland.

Peel today said it would create 500 building jobs on its two projects and 85 permanent positions. It will launch a public consultation on its plans in Clydebank and Cardonald later this month.

The firm will also look to put in formal planning applications to West Dunbartonshire and Glasgow councils in the spring.

Both facilities could be operational – if planning permissions and environmental permits are granted quickly – by 2014.