Paul Simon, spokesman for Babergh district council and the Suffolk consortium said that the refitted MRF would prove very useful to the authorities. Viridor has overall responsibility for the MRF under a 10 year contract it signed earlier this year with Suffolk district and borough councils as a consortium of waste collection authorities. And, the MRF will also have a new education centre for school visits. The plant will have the capacity to handle over 40,000 tonnes of recyclables per annum on a single shift, giving a significant increase to the current recycling rate of 25%. With the refit Viridor is aiming to collect materials to “generate top quality secondary resources to be re-used to make new products”. Other dirty MRF operations in the UK are thought generally to be recovering low volumes of material and are often just sorting lines to take a few materials out of “black sack waste”. The Masons MRF has faced some operational problems and also has a chequered history.
The contract award for the 1 million project, from Viridor Waste Management, effectively spells the end of “dirty” MRFs in England.
