What is energy-from-waste?
Suffolk's energy-from-waste facility (EfW) processes waste left after recycling and composting, under carefully-controlled conditions, to recover energy.
The waste is burned at high temperatures and the heat used to make steam, which drives a turbine to generate electricity. The Suffolk EfW facility became fully operational in December 2014 and uses modern, proven technology to produce enough electricity to power 40,000 homes, that's around the same number of homes in the district of Mid Suffolk, where the EfW is situated!!
Why energy-from-waste in Suffolk?
We are proud of our recycling achievements in this county, however despite our amazing efforts, we are left with around 180,000 tonnes of household rubbish each year which previously would have been disposed of in landfill sites across Suffolk. This situation could not continue due to the lack of availability of landfill space, increasing costs of landfill taxes and more importantly, we wanted to do better environmentally.
We needed to find an alternative, and after much research we decided on energy-from-waste, which uses tried and tested technology to provide a greener, cheaper, solution to disposing of the Suffolk's energy-from-waste facility waste left after recycling.
This technology puts the waste to good use as a fuel to generate electricity and contributes to our aim of making Suffolk the greenest county. Over the 25 year life of the contract, it will also be at least £350 million cheaper for council tax payers than continuing to landfill.
Visit Suffolk Energy from Waste for more information about how the process works, emissions data, newsletters, the visitor centre, and SITA Trust funding opportunities.
If you would like to have a tour of Suffolk's Energy from Waste facility see our Waste Site visits page