What a load of rubbish

Shanks is one of the largest waste management companies in Europe, headquartered in Milton Keynes and with operations throughout the UK as well as in Holland, Belgium and Canada. It has developed to specialise almost solely on longterm municipal waste contracts, selling off its hazardous waste and landfill operations and concentrating on the rapidly emerging PFI market. The biggest of the company’s three current UK PFI contracts is with the East London Waste Authority, for whom it handles half a million tonnes of waste a year on a 25-year contract and successfully operates the largest mechanical and biological treatment plant within the UK.

Shanks handles both the collection and disposal of waste. Collection could be through traditional truck collections, although the push towards increased recycling is leading to a rapid evolution of this service. Shanks currently recycles around 33 per cent of waste collected. In terms of disposal, the company currently focuses strongly on mechanical/biological treatment (MBT) of waste, whereby that which can be recycled is recycled, while non-recyclable waste is treated to create fuel. Much of this fuel goes to fire cement kilns, although paper companies which are also large consumers of heat and power, could be a significant future market. {mosimage}

UK Managing Director Ian Goodfellow was however quick to stress that Shanks are “technologically agnostic.” Where authorities have a preference for an EfW solution, Shanks are, through their strategic partnership with Wheelabrator Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Waste Management Inc, the largest waste management company in the world) currently competing in a number of PFI projects to provide this solution. Ian added “it is no secret that in Merseyside we are offering a market leading solution which involves integrating our MBT solution using Ecodeco technology with our Wheelabrator supply chain to provide long term secure CHP production from our solid recovered fuel (SRF).

While Shanks presently needs a market for the fuel it produces, looking to the future it may well look to becoming a user as well as producer of its own fuels as in Merseyside. Ian Goodfellow explains: “It’s very early days, but we’ve been in preliminary talks with the Olympics authorities. The Olympic Village is set to become social housing following the event, and the prospect of providing community heating to public sector projects like this is one we’re very interested in.”

Another advantage of such community projects is that it furthers the existing good will towards recycling initiatives: “There’s already a lot of support for recycling out there,” says Goodfellow. “But when people can see real concrete results like lower council tax or heat to local schools and homes, that’s bound to multiply. Schools are, in fact, doubly crucial. Firstly because so many new ones are being built, making them an ideal sector to put new community heating facilities in, and also because where children can see the effects of good practice they take that home and educate their parents too. It’s all about getting that message about the benefits out there and not letting it drop.”

Positive messages are perhaps something that the waste treatment industry has not been the best at spreading in the past, and Goodfellow concedes that public perceptions can often be of billowing chimneys and landfill, a situation which has also slowed the planning process for new facilities – a recent Scottish report revealed that the average time from giving a contract to actually having a facility in place is over five years - raising a question mark over the UK’s ability to meet its 2013 targets. He says: “Luckily we have a number of facilities that we can actually take the public to and show them that it’s just a typical industrial unit. We have to push the message that pollution, flies, vermin and all the other negative connotations are emotional, not the reality. That takes a lot of interaction between authority, contractor and the public. It’s a challenge, but all our methods are tried and tested. Some of our techniques have been used for years in the water treatment industry, although they may be new to waste, and the MBT solution is
much lower risk than some of the alternatives or the unproven newer technologies.”

Nonetheless, the need to meet these targets means that the waste treatment sector is rapidly growing. Around 6m tonnes of domestic waste is currently waiting to go through the PFI process in the next round of government spending, and Shanks plans to qualify for the right to bid for every ton of it., The growth of the sector means Shanks’ current five-year business plan anticipates healthy growth, winning a new major PFI contract in each year. Goodfellow added “we have invested heavily in our PFI bidding team which I am very proud of as it can be seen to be reaping dividends as we eagerly look forward to closing the Cumbria PFI despite the adverse financial conditions. This will be achieved because we have low cost, proven technology and the confidence of our bankers with our solution and our team.

Clearly there’s an awful lot of rubbish out there, and if Shanks gets its way a sizeable chunk will soon be heading to its treatment facilities.