Household waste sparks energy

Household waste from Rochdale and the rest of Greater Manchester is now being turned into electricity and heat at a Merseyside plant.

In Runcorn the Viridor plant turns 275,000 tonnes of waste from Greater Manchester households into 29Megawatts of electrical power and 64 tonnes an hour of steam - making it one of the largest and most efficient plants of its kind in Europe.

The energy created supplies a neighbouring PVC and chlorine factory with around 20 per cent of its energy - cutting the site’s energy costs and reducing the use of fossil fuel.

Waste is transported to Runcorn from four mechanical biological treatment sites in Greater Manchester, which pre-treat the waste for the plant and create enough energy in the process to run 4,000 homes and sell a surplus to the National Grid.

The Runcorn plant is part of Greater Manchester’s overall recycling and waste plan, which aims to recycle and compost 50 per cent of waste, and divert at least 75 per cent of waste from landfill by 2015.

Construction at Runcorn began in 2010 and when its second phase is live, the plant will be able to treat around 850,000 tonnes of waste a year.