The Scottish New Generation Group visited Dundee City Council's Waste Sorting Facility and Dundee Energy Recycling Limited on 7th June 2005. Mr. Kenny Kerr (DCC), Mr. Mark McCarthy and Mr. John Callaghan (both DERL) provided interesting and informative tours of the DCC and DERL sites respectively.

The Energy-from-Waste Plant which is operated by DERL was commissioned in 1999.

The facility is scheduled to operate on the basis of processing (fuel preparation and Incineration in boilers) 105,000 tonnes of waste per annum. 75,000 tonnes of this is contracted with Dundee City Council.  DCC collect around 95,000 tonnes overall annually and approximately 55,000 of this is domestic RCV waste and is delivered directly to the plant. The remaining 30,000 is bulky waste, commercial collections, skip waste etc and is unsuitable for direct delivery to the EfW plant.  This material is taken to the city council-operated waste processing/recycling facility at Baldovie (next door to DERL) and is processed into recyclables and fuel stock.  Around 65% of the input material is rendered fuel for DERL, 30% recycled and around 5% landfill residues. The remaining 10,000 collected tonnes is 'direct' recyclates (paper, card, green waste, glass etc).

Municipal Solid Waste is deposited at the DCC sorting facility prior to its pre-treatment for acceptance at DERL. Large, bulky items are shredded and various materials such as flex are removed. Mr. Kerr suggested that this facility is on target to achieve a 30% diversion of waste from landfill this year.

At DERL the waste is fed into boilers generating electricity, which is then fed back into the National Grid.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable visit. Thanks to Kenny, Mark and John for their time.