GLASGOW’s trash is to be turned in to electricity at a giant new £150 million power plant.

The massive “energy-from-waste” facility, will be built on the city’s South Side, will process up to 200,000 tonnes of domestic rubbish every year.

Council chiefs will next month seal a multi-million-pound deal for private firm Viridor to build and run what it calls a “recycling and renewable energy” complex.

The plant will create around 250 jobs at the council’s Polmadie rubbish depot and recycling yard – as well, officials insist, as saving hundreds of millions of pounds over the next 25 years.

Council leader Gordon Matheson today stressed the proposed plant would improve the city’s woefully poor recycling record.

He said: “Glasgow’s waste is a valuable resource – and, if we are to become one of Europe’s most sustainable cities, we need to ensure it is Glasgow that takes full advantage of it.

“This facility is part of the next generation of sustainable infrastructure.

“It will end the city’s reliance on expensive and unpopular landfill; help us harvest tens of thousands of tonnes more recycling, and use the rest of our trash to produce an affordable, clean and secure source of heat and power for local communities.”

Mr Matheson and other officials have gone out of their way to avoid calling the Polmadie plant an “incinerator” – although many green campaigners and some engineers would do so.

The proposed facility is different from incinerators of old, which simply burned rubbish, releasing dangerous toxins in to the atmosphere.

The new plant will use hi-tech systems to turn unrecyclable rubbish in to gas – and then burn that gas to create steam and drive electricity turbines.

It will generate enough electricity to power 22,000 homes.

Some environmentalists favour such technology – saying there is no “pretty” way of getting rid of the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste Glasgow homes generate every year.

Others, including city Green MSP Patrick Harvie, have previously questioned the enviromental credentials of such plants.

Asked about a broadly similar private scheme announced for Newton Mearns earlier this year he said: “We’re nowhere near convinced that ‘energy from waste’ is anything other than a rebranding of incineration to make it look renewable.”

City sources, however, believe they had little choice but to turn to the controversial technology.

Right now, Glasgow still sends almost three-quarters of its annual 350,000 tonnes of rubbish to landfill.

But “landfill taxes” are set to soar, making burying rubbish in the ground prohibitively expensive after 2014.

Everybody agrees the best way to cut such costs is to recycle more. But nobody agrees how.

Figures released yesterday show the city recycles just under 27% of its household waste, way below a nationwide average of around 43%.

Bosses reckon they can improve that figure but - without the big new Polmadie plant - only to around 34%.

So for three or more years city leaders have been trying to figure out a way of making Glasgow a model of sustainability – and avoid tens of millions of pounds of landfill tax every year.

In an effort to solve the growing waste problem, Glasgow asked private firms to tender for the right to buy the city’s rubbish.

That process effectively came to an end today with plans for a 25-year contract to sell between 175,000 and 200,000 tonnes of domestic waste for recycling and processing to Viridor.

The company will buy rubbish from the council at an agreed rate. It will then recycle some 18% of it at a new sorting plant at Polmadie.

Organic materials will undergo anaerobic digestion, being turned in to gas in big tanks.

But most unrecyclable rubbish, including the goo left over after digestion, will be gasified in what the council calls an “advanced conversion facility”.

The gas from both processes will fire a combined heat and power plant, which will generate both hot water and electricity.

The deal with Viridor will certainly be cheaper than the status quo. Without switching from landfill to energy-from-waste, the council would have had to find £239m in extra cash over the next 25 years.

That figure last night helped Mr Matheson to successfully sell the Viridor contract to the ruling Labour group.

That means it will almost certainly win the approval of the council’s all-powerful executive committee next month.

The city leader today defended the project.

He said: “Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands have the highest recycling rates in Europe.

“They have achieved that by embracing a mix of modern, but proven, technologies that not only boost recycling but recover energy from what remains.

“Without this facility, we would not only be faced with the prospect of piling millions of tonnes of waste into the ground; but we would also pay through the nose to do so.

“The status quo is not an option. By being bolder, we will save millions.”

 

Tap into water spin-off

RIGHT now the new facility is designed to generate up to 105MWh of electricity a year, enough for about 22,000 homes.

But its combined heat and power plant could instead be calibrated to produce hot water. And that, in turn, could heat thousands of nearby homes, public buildings and businesses.

The Evening Times understands city chiefs are already seriously thinking about investing in the network of hot water pipes that could deliver this heat using technology widely used in countries such as Sweden, Finland and Russia.

The city fathers will probably have to ‘tweak’ their deal with plant builders Viridor and the electricity generators to do so.

Council leader Gordon Matheson, left, said: "Projects like this one will be at the heart of Warm Glasgow, our long-term project to make affordable warmth a reality for all in this city."

 

TIMELINE

July 2008: Glasgow City Council unveils plans to build its own autoclave, a facility that would "steam-clean" rubbish in to recyclable materials.

April 2010: City realises it can’t afford to build its own plant and launches tender for a private firm to process its trash.

November 2010: Evening Times reveals "rubbish crisis" as city’s only landfill nearly full.

January 2011: Council names two finalists for contract, dropping only firm offering an autoclave.

November 2011: Viridor’s plans for "energy-from-waste" plant wins two-year procurement process.

December 2011: Council’s ruling executive committee expected to approve contract.

January 2013: Councillors expected to approve planning application for plant.

April 2013: Construction scheduled to begin.

December 2015: Plant scheduled to open.